Biosocial Anthropology Specialization

The biosocial program offers specialized training in biological anthropology and in biosocial approaches to the study of human behavior.

Students in the program should plan to specialize in the areas of research in which the faculty has interest and expertise. Faculty interests include using bioarchaeological data to look at the relationship between the natural and social environment and human health and behavior, the study of psychological adaptations, including those related to human sexuality and mating and those underlying social cognition, emotion and coalitions; the evolution of sex and genetic systems and evolutionary approaches to human social behavior.

Complementary research strengths in the department include expertise in hunter-gatherer archaeology and in ecological approaches to culture. The biology and psychology departments also have faculty with evolutionarily oriented research programs, further expanding the specialized training opportunities available to students. Graduate students can participate in the Interdisciplinary Program in Human Development and programs offered by the Center for Evolutionary Psychology.

Students are normally admitted to the M.A./Ph.D program. The requirements of the M.A./Ph.D program include coursework, a comprehensive exam, a research paper, a dissertation proposal, an oral qualifying exam, and the dissertation, although modifications may be made in light of a student's particular circumstances. The details of the requirements are worked out in a contract between the advisor and the student in order to formulate a plan of study that is tailored to the student's specific research goals. Courses are normally taken for two years with a student taking three courses per academic quarter (or two courses if the person is serving as a Teaching Assistant).

In the spring quarter of the second year of study, the student normally takes a comprehensive examination that covers the areas agreed on in the student's contract. A satisfactory completion of coursework and the comprehensive exam is necessary to attain the MA degree. Upon completion of the requirements of the M.A. and when the research paper and dissertation proposal have been written and approved by the Ph.D committee, the student is advanced to candidacy. The proposal is usually used in applications for grants to support fieldwork, laboratory work, or experimentation. Thereafter it normally takes at least a year to write the dissertation.

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Last updated: June 15, 2000 by EHH