Graduate Studies
Program Overview
Our graduate program offers courses and research opportunities leading to the M.A. degree. We offer courses in all four subfields of anthropology: archaeology, biological, cultural, and linguistic. In addition, you can also pursue an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in museum studies.
Graduate work in anthropology is designed to prepare you for teaching, conducting research in anthropology, practicing in applied anthropology, and continuing to doctoral study. You may choose either a coursework-based curriculum ending with comprehensive exams in all four subfields or a more focused track with research experience leading to a thesis. Suppose you choose to pursue the thesis option. In that case, you are strongly encouraged to contact potential graduate advisors before the application deadline to discuss available options for research projects.
We can offer financial support to many of our graduate students through research and teaching assistantships. Applying for these types of financial support must be done separately from the admission application.
For more information on our program, refer to the graduate catalog.
Faculty Accepting Graduate Students
| Name | Specialty |
|---|---|
| Dana Bardolph | Archaeology: paleoethnobotany, ancient foodways, discipline sociopolitics and gender equity. Dr. Bardolph will be on sabbatical 2026-27 and will not be accepting students for fall 2026 or spring 2027. |
| Giovanni Bennardo | Linguistic anthropology (code-switching, conversation analysis, linguistic ideology; Cognitive anthropology (cultural models). |
| Mitchell Irwin | Primatology/primate ecology, with emphasis on diet, nutrition and movement. Dr. Irwin's advisees typically conduct fieldwork in Madagascar and/or nutritional ecology lab work on the NIU campus. However, pursuing other field sites or research with captive primate populations is also possible. |
| Emily McKee | Cultural anthropology: environment and political ecology, nationalism, farming and regional food systems, water, environmental justice, Middle East, United States |
| Micah Morton | Cultural anthropology: transnationalism, state-minority relations, social movements, religion and politics, spiritual ecology, ethnicity and nationalism and global Indigeneities in and beyond Southeast Asia and Southwest China |
| Leila Porter | Primate behavior/primate ecology, with emphasis on social behavior, reproduction and parental care. |
| Mark Schuller | Cultural anthropology, with emphasis on NGOs, disasters, globalization and gender, and geographic emphasis on Caribbean/Latin America. |
| Ivan Small | Cultural anthropology, with emphasis on migration, transportation, mobility, diaspora, transnationalism, economic anthropology, Asian and Asian American Studies, Southeast Asia. |
