UCL Anthropology

The academic year 2011/12 has started well. We have four new lecturers starting across social anthropology, medical anthropology, material culture and biological anthropology and have been able to offer Cressida Jervis-Read a contract as Teaching Fellow, assisting social anthropology in the running of the Masters Programme. We have also been awarded two large research grants, both together bringing seven new postdoctoral research fellows and twelve PhD students to the Department over the next five years. The first grant was awarded under the Leverhulme call on resilience and is directed to research on Hunters and Gathers, while the second grant was awarded by the European Research Council for research on Social Networking.

The imminent arrival of new staff associated with these grants forced us to reorganise the allocation of space in the Department. We now have a large Postdoctoral Fellow Room on the ground floor and a further MPhil/PhD room on the 3rd floor, accessible this year for hot-desking by MPhil/PhD students.

On the administration side of the Department, we have welcomed Ms. Man Yang who is our newDepartmental Information Officer and Mr. Paul Carter-Bowman, arriving in January, who will be looking after Finance and Grants. With great sadness we are announcing the retirement of our Postgraduate Coordinator Diana Goforth who has been with us for many years. She will be badly missed.

Staff and PhD students are active in their research groups and we are looking forward to a series of workshops and panels at conferences organised by staff and students from the Department, a number of us just having returned from Montreal where they participated at this year’s American Anthropological Association Meetings. The Department is buzzing with life and teeming with ideas, and continues to inspire as a creative and supportive environment in which to thrive.

I wish you all a very happy and successful New Year.
Susanne Kuechler, Head of Department

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