Anthropology Department

Below are featured Anthropology Alumni. We always like hearing what our Alumni are currently doing. Want to be profiled here? Email the department at hebbron@reed.edu. 

Anthropology Majors

Curious about what alumni do with their Anthropology degree from Reed? The Center for Life Beyond Reed has compiled data such as the top job industry for our Anthropology majors is Education and and Training and the top graduate school is the University of Chicago. See this page for more information about Reed Anthro alums' careers.

Tsering Bum '12

Tsering Bum is the program coordinator of Shanshui Conservation Center, a Chinese conservation NGO headquartered in Peking University that does community based conservation work and research in Tibetan regions of Qinghai, China. Some of the projects he is currently working on for Shanshui include: solving the human-brown bear conflicts, supporting local communities to build trash houses for plastic waste and transport them to major towns for recycling and conducting scientific wildlife monitoring to better understand local ecosystem. His anthropological research is studying the relationship between ecological conservation and worship of sacred sites in Yushu in an effort to form policy recommendations to include Tibetan sacred sites into formal nature reserves. Tsering was recently featured in a Chinese online magazine for environmentalists.

From Tsering: “I have to admit that when I graduated from Reed, I doubted the value of anthropological training in real world application, however, two years in Yushu made me realize that it is this anthropological training received at Reed that helped me to do my work better, especially in the context of interacting with local villagers, I am constantly reminded of the ethics and "right" positions I need to take to maintain the balance, or avoiding creating "problems" for local people. This experience also made me realize that I am really interested in doing research work, and when I am done with my work at Shanshui, I am thinking of applying for further studies in anthropology in the US.”

Peter Stockman '77 and Jeremy Stone '99

Peter Stockman '77 and Jeremy Stone '99 will be participating in Working Weekend on February 8, 2014. Working Weekend is a time when alumni, parents, and friends of Reed travel to campus with the purpose of helping Reed students and recent alumni get traction in careers, internships, externships, and networking.

Daniel Denvir ‘05

Daniel wrote his thesis on the social and cultural transformations wrought by neoliberal globalization on the border city of Ciudad, Juarez, Mexico (under the patient tutelage of Professor Charlene Makley). After graduation, he worked two years as an organizer with the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC), which advocates for labor and immigrant rights and opposes U.S. intervention in Latin America. He then moved to Ecuador where he started to pretend he was a journalist. Denvir is now a staff writer at the Philadelphia City Paper, a contributing writer at Salon.com, and a frequent contributor to The Guardian.

Dan spent the last six months reporting from Strawberry Mansion, asking neighbors what has driven a decade of non-stop shooting and killing. Many of the shootings, it turns out, stem from a single murder in 2003 and the resulting feud between three corners. He hopes that understanding why these murders took place offers clues as to how they can be prevented in the future. His article, A decade of war in Philly's deadliest neighborhood, chronicles this decade-long gunfight involving three corners has wounded numerous bystanders, led to rampant witness intimidation, destroyed lifelong friendships and killed or incarcerated a generation of young men. 

His long-time girlfriend is, like many of his friends from Reed, a Ph.D. student. Read more about Dan on his website. Listen to his podcast, The Dig.

Amanda Ufheil-Somers '08

Amanda has worked in a variety of nonprofit organizations engaged in advocacy, direct services, and public education. While in Portland, she was involved with immigrant rights campaigns through the Center for Intercultural Organizing. After a one-year research fellowship with Professor Tamara Metz, she spent two years teaching social studies, research skills, and computer literacy in after-school and summer programs for under-served youth in Washington, D.C. She is currently assistant editor of the quarterly magazine, Middle East Report, where her thesis research sometimes comes in handy. Amanda lives in the District of Columbia. She has recently co-edited the book The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East.

The 2011 eruptions of popular discontent across the Arab world, popularly dubbed the Arab Spring, were local manifestations of a regional mass movement for democracy, freedom, and human dignity. Authoritarian regimes were either overthrown or put on notice that the old ways of oppressing their subjects would no longer be tolerated. These essays from Middle East Report—the leading source of timely reporting and insightful analysis of the region—cover events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen. Written for a broad audience of students, policymakers, media analysts, and general readers, the collection reveals the underlying causes of the revolts by identifying key trends during the last two decades leading up to the recent insurrections.

"This is easily the best volume on the Arab uprisings yet published. The material is very strong and accessibly written, providing rich background on the political and economic contexts in the region prior to the uprisings as well as after the events of 2011 unfolded, based on substantive knowledge....Ideal for students, policymakers, and general readers." —Jillian Schwedler, University of Massachusetts (Jillian Schwedler, University of Massachusetts) 

"[T]he contributors to The Arab Revolts... do an excellent job of filling in some of the gaps in Western media coverage, going beyond the dominant narrative of spontaneous youthful protests, aided by the use of social media, to show a foundation of protest built over decades.... This is not a book written by academics for academics, but rather serves as an introduction to readers from any background. The articles are generally free from convoluted jargon or theoretical frameworks that could otherwise limit potential readership. The authors tackle complex problems, but present them in a way that is useful for scholars, teachers, students, and general readers." —H-Empire

Will Munger ‘11

Will is a member of the Life During Wartime editorial collective and also organized the 2011 Counter Counterinsurgency Convergence at Reed during his senior year. He recently contributed to Life During Wartime.

"Together, the writers sound a sobering warning: the American government is an iron fist in a velvet glove whose purpose remains preserving the status quo and enriching the rich."— Publishers Weekly

What happens when the techniques of counterinsurgency, developed to squash small skirmishes and guerrilla wars on the border of Empire, blend into the state's apparatus for domestic policing? In Life During Wartime, fifteen authors and activists reflect on the American domestic security apparatus, detailing the increasing militarization of the police force and the re-emergence of infiltration and counter-intelligence as surveillance strategies, highlighting the ways that the techniques and the technologies of counterinsurgency have been applied on the home front, and offering strategies for resistance. Includes contributions Kristian Williams, Will Munger, Walidah Imarisha, George Ciccariello-Maher, Beriah Empie, Elaine Brown, Geoffrey Boyce, Conor Cash, Vicente L. Rafael, Alexander Reid Ross, Evan Tucker, Layne Mullett, Sarah Small, and Luce Guillen-Givins.