2009 Student Awards and Scholarships
Graduate Awards
Reynold Ruppé Prize in Archaeology
Kristin Nado
The Reynold Ruppé Prize in Archaeology is awarded to the best paper in archaeology by a graduate student at ASU. Kristin Nado penned this year's prize-winning paper — "Contested Meanings in the City of the Gods: Ritual Practice and Gender Heterodoxy at
Kristin is in the midst of her doctoral phase at ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change, where she is studying the bioarchaeology of postclassic central Mexico. She would like to recognize Jane Buikstra, Rachel Scott, Mike Smith, George Cowgill and Kelly Knudson as especially helpful and influential faculty during her academic career.
Ruppé Prize in Archaeology Honorable Mention
Sara Marsteller
The Reynold Ruppé Prize in Archaeology is awarded to the best paper in archaeology by a graduate student at ASU. Marsteller's paper, titled "Gender Fluidity in the Ancient Andes: A Case Study at the Tablada de Lurín,
Sara is continuing through ASU's Ph.D. program in anthropology, specializing in bioarchaeology, using evidence of diet and mobility to address questions of religion, identity and community interaction in the central Andes. This fall, she will be a research associate in the Archaeological Chemistry Laboratory. She would like to thank Rachel Scott, Jane Buikstra and Kelly Knudson for their guidance and inspiration.
Philip Mason Thompson Award
Meredith Gartin
Meridith, who is in the Social Science and Health doctoral program, is preparing for her dissertation fieldwork in urban Paraguay. In this project, she will be looking at how resource-poor households are coping with limited food access and compromised environments in a time and place where dramatic rapid ecological, social and economic change is taking place. She is currently working as a central collaborator on a range of other projects as part of her research assistance assignments. Meridith's experience and portfolio are extensive, using cultural approaches to address several major issues that affect all global citizens, including access to adequate amounts of clean water and the right types of food, the emergence of new diseases, rapid landscape destruction and urbanization. Her work embodies the ideals of the Philip Mason Thompson Award by being not only scientifically and ethically excellent but also by exhibiting real-world application.
Donald H. Morris Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student in Physical Anthropology
Luz Pfister
Luz's research focuses on origins and evolution of human disease, host-pathogen co-evolution, human and non-human primate evolution and genetic contributions to the evolution of primate social behavior. Her proposed dissertation work will explore patterns of disease transmission between humans and non-human primates to investigate the origins of leprosy, and will contribute to anthropological theory on the origin and evolution of infectious diseases. Medicine and microbiology are Luz's areas of specialization, and her current focus is anthropological genetics. The recipient of a Wenner Gren Foundation grant for doctoral dissertation fieldwork, she has presented her past research findings at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and the 2008 meeting of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution in Barcelona. Luz plans to continue her academic career studying humans and their evolutionary companions.
Undergraduate Awards
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Student Achievement Award
James Randall
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Circle Award
Vanessa Hillman
Cynthia Lakin Award
Jason Stokes
Dons and Doñas of Arizona Award
Leslie Aragon and Will Russell
Alumni Award
Meridith Masoner
Spring 2009 Undergraduate Research Assistantships
Meg Watjen and Meridith Masoner
Fall 2009 Undergraduate Research Scholarship
Mitch Darnell
