Departmental News

Posted:  Oct 23, 2017 - 12:00am

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Mari Lyn Salvador On October 23, 2017. Mari Lyn Salvador was our colleague here in the Department of Anthropology and in the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology form 1978 until 2005. She served as Chief Curator in the Museum during this time, and was Professor of Anthropology until she became the Director of the San Diego Museum of Man in 2005. 

Among the many highlights of her career at UNM were exhibits about her long-term fieldwork and profoundly collaborative ethnography among and with the santero wood carvers of Northern New Mexico, with the indigenous Kuna of the San Blas Islands of Panama, and with the people of the Azores Islands and their descendant communities in southern California. All of these exhibits were accompanied by the publication of lavishly illustrated, scholarly catalogues that have been widely circulated and remain influential.  Professor Salvador also was instrumental in creating the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies, and participated in securing the initial National Endowment for the Humanities grant that initiated the Ortiz Center.  Mari Lyn Salvador was a sophisticated scholar with broad interests and areas of expertise, and she will be greatly missed. She was one of the first faculty members to teach classes in museum studies, and her classes formed an essential component of the Ethnology program in the department. Professor Salvador mentored many graduate students in their dissertation work and into successful academic careers.  She donated her extensive collection of Kuna textiles and other material culture to the Maxwell Museum for the benefit of the public