Women's History Month, March 2024
Departmental News
Posted: Mar 01, 2024 - 12:00pm
UNM celebrates Women's History Month, March 2024. Click on the red links below for more information. Scroll down to read about UNM organizations, events, scholars, the history of Women's History Month, research, news and organizations.
UNM Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program (formerly Women's Studies Program)
"The Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies program is committed to educating students about the relationships among identity, power and knowledge toward the ends of social justice and empowerment. We are an interdisciplinary program that focuses on how feminist, queer, and transgender studies. We support the development and application of new theories of feminist, queer, and transgender studies throughout the university and the application of feminist, queer, and transgender methods in order to evaluate critically scholarship and research in the disciplines. In addition, the program seeks to educate students in ways that enable them to respond to issues that affect the lives of all people locally, regionally and globally."
"Scarlett Higgins [Director of the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program] teaches classes in contemporary American literature and film, including Postmodernism, Contemporary Literature, The Culture of the Cold War, Avant Garde in America, Contemporary Literature and Gender, and Introduction to Film Analysis. She has published articles in The Langston Hughes Review, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Arizona Quarterly. A chapter in the edited volume Ablaze with Lyric Fire (Ashgate) was published in 2014 and one in The Critical Experience (Kendall/Hunt) is forthcoming. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Persistence of Vision: Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Collage."
UNM Feminist Research Institute (FRI)
"The Feminist Research Institute is dedicated to the production of scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality, and to the creation of intellectual community among feminist scholars at UNM. UNM has a large number of feminist faculty and graduate students, and the Institute offers an opportunity to meet and work with others both within and across disciplines."
Dr. Francisco J. Galarte is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies the the Director of the Feminist Research Institute (FRI). He writes: "I have had the honor and pleasure of serving as the Director of the Feminist Research Institute since January 2021. Since my appointment in 2021, I have been studying the presence and legacies of previous directors and members of the governing boards of the Feminist Research Institute. I have engaged in this exercise of “study” to forge a path forward for the Institute that builds on previous leadership and existing intellectual communities. Since the mid-1990s the Feminist Research Institute at UNM has focused on supporting the production of scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality and cultivating intellectual communities among feminist scholars at UNM. Known simply as the FRI, the institute has proudly supported the research excellence for which UNM feminist scholars are known at local, national, and global levels. The strength of the FRI has been the institute’s ability to bring together scholars from different disciplines and departments into contact with one another to foster interdisciplinary projects and conversations. In a moment where the concept and lived experience of “gender” is under scrutiny; intellectually, socially, politically, and culturally the production and dissemination of feminist research is urgently necessary. More specifically, feminist scholars are relentlessly being implored to ask the questions that matter, or rather raise the stakes of what might come to fruition in reinvigorating the category of gender and its utility as a frame of analysis. The countless legislative attacks on gender, have revealed that the future of gender is now. For that reason, I have recently restructured the FRI’s funding structure to include grant opportunities that encourage a more collaborative approach to undertake research on issues/topics related to women, gender, and sexuality. The new funding opportunities call upon faculty and graduate students to come together and form working groups that propose projects/topics that ask the questions that matter and raise the stakes as they are related to the following priorities:
Proposals for interdisciplinary projects are particularly welcome, and junior faculty are especially encouraged to apply. Full-time tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty and librarians are eligible to apply.
Proposals that contribute to Feminist, Queer, Transgender, Critical Race, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Critical Indigenous Studies scholarship focused on the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality at UNM.
Proposals that focus on community-based research and creative projects in partnership with locally-based community organizations that address social, political, cultural, and economic inequities of underrepresented populations in New Mexico and the southwest region.
The funding opportunities for the 2023-2024 funding cycle ask that faculty and graduate students converge upon current and prescient issues related to race, gender, and sexuality. I encourage faculty and students to apply for FRI funding this cycle and encourage the submission of proposals that are innovative, experimental, and non-traditional which most importantly are representative of UNM’s rich legacy of feminist scholars and innovators."
UNM Women's Resource Center (WRC)
"The Women’s Resource Center is a place of advocacy, support, and safety for all members of the University of New Mexico and greater community. Through a feminist model of empowerment we offer educational, social, and cultural programming aimed at encouraging women’s self-determination and community engagement. The Women’s Resource Center promotes awareness and the advancement of women’s rights to ensure equity regardless of gender identity, sex, race, ability status, age, sexual orientation, economic class, or religious affiliation. We seek to facilitate understanding and mutual respect among all campus and community members to achieve social justice, as well as foster a positive UNM environment. The Women’s Resource Center provides the tools and resources necessary to enhance success within academic, personal, and professional aspects of students’ lives."
"Áine McCarthy [Director of the Women's Resource Center] started at UNM in 2020 as an advocate supporting student survivors on campus is now proud to be serving as Director. She previously worked at Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe as co-director of the Professional Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. She is also an ordained Buddhist chaplain with a background in working with women in prison and offering creative and contemplative programming for women and femmes cultivating post-traumatic growth after Intimate Partner Violence. (For more on this, check out this short documentary film by Healing Voices-Personal Stories, Through the Door—Movement, Meditation, and Healing) Áine holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and completed the Living School at the Center for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque. She’s currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at UNM." Learn more
UNM LGBTQ Resource Center (LGBTQ*)
"The Mission of the LGBTQ Resource Center is: To provide service to UNM students, faculty, and staff of all gender identities and sexual orientations through support, advocacy, education, and safety. The LGBTQ Resource Center strives to create a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for all members of the University of New Mexico and surrounding community. As a safe zone environment, we stand up against homophobia and value the worth and dignity of all people. Through education, we aim to bring a heightened visibility of the LGBTQ* community on campus and to issues that affect LGBTQ* individuals. Through leadership development, we promote a more civically engaged campus community committed to equality and equal opportunity for all people."
Advance at UNM
"We are an eclectic and experienced group of faculty and staff developing partnerships that will create sustainable changes in the UNM climate, contributing to increased success and satisfaction for women and minority faculty."
Call for Proposals: 2024 Women in STEM Awards (due May 14)
Events
March 4, 11 AM, Dr. Garnett Stokes presents the UNM State of the University Address
March 4, 12 noon, Bell Hooks Reading and Discussion Group hosted by UNM Valencia Campus in person at Valencia Writing Center and via Zoom
March 4, 4 PM, SA+P Spring Lecture Series:"Sara Zewde: The Aesthetics of Being." hosted by the School of Architecture and Planning, George Pearl Hall
March 4, 7 PM EDT, Remember the First Ladies presented by the National Archives, View on You Tube
March 5, All Day, Pedacitos de Resistencia: Socially Engaged Work in Latin American Special Collections hosted by the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections, UNM Zimmerman Library
March 5, 12 PM, Humanity Matters: Henrietta Lacks’ HeLa Cells and HER Impact on Research, Health, and Equity presented by the UNM HSC Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; HSC Domenici Center Auditorium; Register in Advance
March 6, 1 PM EDT, Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition presented by the National Archives Museum, view on You Tube
March 6, 3 PM, Inés Pérez presents “Theft, Consumption, And Gender in Domestic Service (Mar del Plata, Argentina, 1950–1980)" via Zoom, presented by the UNM History Department
March 7, 12:30 PM, Mindful Looking with Justine Andrews at the UNM Art Museum
March 7, 5:30 PM, Tamarind Talks: Kylee Aragon Wallis on Material Memory at the Tamarind Institute
March 7, 7 PM EDT, Virtual Studio Tour with Ursala Hudson (Tlingit) Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023 Online; Register in Advance
March 9, All Day, Indigenous Connections and Collections: Native Women and Libraries, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (Albuquerque)
March 9, 10-2 PM, Pueblo Women's Heritage Celebration, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (Albuquerque)
March 13, 11-1:30 PM, 2024 New Mexico Women in Tech Awards: Where Innovation Meets Inspiration hosted by the New Mexico Technology Council, Hotel Albuquerque. Registration begins at 10 am.
March 13-15, All Day, 8ᵗʰ Annual International Meeting on Women's Health hosted by the UNM Health Sciences Center at the Sheraton Uptown; Register in Advance
March 18, 6 PM CST, Bringing Home the White House: The Hidden History of the Women who Shaped the Presidency in the 20th Century presented by the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Online
March 19, 2:30 PM, Alejandra Dubcovsky, professor of History at UC Riverside, presents "There Were So Many Bossy Women!" Native Voices and Stories from the Early South.” Frank Waters Room, Zimmerman Library, hosted by the UNM Department of History
March 22, 12 PM, Coded Bias-Film Screening, hosted by the UNM HSC Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Health Sciences Library; Register in Advance (followed by an online Q & A with Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya on March 27 at noon)
March 22, 3 PM, Anthropology Colloquia: Anthropological Engagements in Implementation Science to Advance Health Equity for Sexual and Gender Diverse Youth presented by Dr. Cathleen Willging, Hibben 105
March 27, 11-2 PM EDT, Becoming Visible Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon hosted by the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, Online. Register in Advance
March 27, 12 noon, UNM Health Sciences Office for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Excellence Award for Women’s History Month (nominations due by March 13); Register in Advance
March 27 5:30 PM, 68th Annual Research Lecture:Mammalian Paleoecology: Using the Past to Study the Present presented by UNM Distinguished Professor Dr. Felisa Smith, PAIS 1100 and via Zoom; Register in Advance
Virtual Exhibit from the National Gallery of Art, Dorothea Lange: Seeing People (through March 31)
Virtual Exhibit from the National Museum of American History, ¡De última hora! Latinas Report Breaking News (and related content)
Podcast: Library of Congress presents Women of Five Wars: Persian Gulf, Iraq & Afghanistan from the Serving our Voices Veteran's History Project
9 Best TED Talks To Watch During Women's History Month
Virtual Exhibits from the National Women's History Museum
Online and in person events ongoing at the National Institute of Flamenco in Albuquerque
Virtual Exhibits National Museum of Women in the Arts
United Nations Global Compact: Endorse the Women's Empowerment Principles
Women Who Shaped the Maxwell
PBS Celebrates Women's History Month with Films, Exhibits and Digital Shorts
National Museum of American History features Oral Histories, Exhibits and Collections
The Smithsonian Institute hosts Virtual Events celebrating Women's History Month
The National Parks Service Celebrates Women's History Month with online content
Scholars
Dr. Florence Hawley Ellis (1906-1991) was the first female Anthropologist at UNM (hired 1935) and one of the first in the US. “She was one of the first researchers to focus on tree ring dating, doing early research in eastern North America (Norris Basin) in the 1930s….Not only a pioneer in her research and scholarship, she also helped pave the way for the acknowledgement and acceptance of women in academia. Ellis was honored as a Professor Emerita and, in 1988, was granted an honorary Doctorate of Letters by UNM.”
Dr. Jane Lancaster, UNM Distinguished Professor Emerita of Anthropology, is a pioneer in the human evolutionary sciences. Her early research on primate behavior developed into groundbreaking work on the evolution of human society, touching on issues of sex roles, parenting, and life history strategies. In 1990, she founded the journal Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective. In 2012 she was awarded the Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Read Dr. Lancaster's 1991 article A Feminist and Evolutionary Biologist Looks at Women and a tribute to her work with Human Nature by Dr. Robert Hitchcock
Dr. Louise Lamphere is a pioneering feminist anthropologist and Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of New Mexico. She is best known for her work on the anthropology of gender and sex discrimination, and she also published extensively on Native American cultural practices, kinship, immigration, and urban anthropology. She served as President-elect of the American Anthropological Association from 1997-1999 and then as President from 1999-2001. She was awarded the Franz Boas Award in 2013 and the Bronislaw Malinowski Award in 2017. Dr. Lamphere was denied tenure at Brown University and filed a class action suit on the basis of sex discrimination in 1975. This landmark case led to the establishment of an Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee at Brown, and catalyzed other actions to promote gender equality in academia. Lamphere was awarded the “Squeaky Wheel” award by the Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology “...for her lifelong work for the equality of women in anthropology.” In 2015 she received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Brown for her courage in standing up for equity and fairness for all faculty. Read more about her scholarship, the landmark Brown University case, and visit the Brown University Louise Lamphere Papers. Watch her presentations here
Dr. Patricia Crown, Leslie Spier Distinguished Professor Emerita of Anthropology, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. A southwestern archaeologist, Dr. Crown’s research at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon yielded a significant discovery of cacao, providing evidence of trade with South America. She is the Director of the UNM Anthropology Laboratory of Ceramic Analysis, and recently completed a Weatherhead Fellowship with the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. Her edited volume The House of the Cylinder Jars: Room 28 in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon was recently published by the University of New Mexico Press. In 2022, she was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow.
Dr. Melissa Emery Thompson is Professor of Anthropology, co-director of the Comparative Human and Primate Physiology Center at UNM, and co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda. She was appointed Assistant Vice President for Research in the UNM Provost office in the Fall of 2021. She has received extensive funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her research. She is currently ".. leading a project funded by the National Institute on Aging examining the human aging process by studying one of our closest relatives — chimpanzees." Read more
Dr. Carla Sinopoli is the first woman "...Director of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at UNM and Professor of Anthropology. An archaeologist specializing in South Asia, her survey and excavation projects in southern India examine the political economy of the 2nd millennium CE imperial capital of Vijayanagara and emergent sociopolitical inequalities in the second and first millennia BCE Iron Age. In addition to her archaeological work, Sinopoli’s research interests also include the history of university museums and anthropological collecting. She is the author or editor of 10 books and dozens of articles and her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for Humanities, National Geographic Society, and Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, among others." Read more
Dr. Emily Lena Jones is Professor, UNM Regents' Lecturer, and Director of the Zooarchaeology Lab. She is a faculty affiliate of the UNM Center for Stable Isotopes (CSI) as well as the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII). Dr. Jones is an environmental archaeologist whose research has focused on paleolithic archaeology of Iberia (both Spain and Portugal, but primarily Mediterranean Spain) for the past ten years, but in recent years she has begun working on the Spanish Colonial record of Latin America. Her edited volume Questioning the Rebound: People and Environmental Change in the Protohistoric and Early Historic Americas was published in 2023. She co-authored the recent article in Science Early Dispersal of Domestic Horses in the Great Plains and Northern Rockies, which was won the AAAS 2024 Newcomb Cleveland Prize. Read more
Dr. Suzanne Oakdale is Professor of Anthropology and Editor of the Journal of Anthropological Research. Her book Amazonian Cosmopolitans: Navigating a Shamanic Cosmos, Shifting Indigenous Identities, and Other Modern Projects was published in 2022 by the University of Nebraska Press. She is currently expanding her research and is designing a project centered on celiac disease and the methods of coping with chronic conditions. Using ethnographic research methods, she will focus on the role that personal narratives, one’s own and those of others, can play the management of this condition. Dr. Oakdale has been selected to participate in the first cohort of the pilot Fostering Research Expansion in the Social Sciences and Humanities (FRESSH) Program, established by the Office of the Vice President for Research at UNM. Read more
Dr. Frances Hayashida is Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the UNM Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII). Dr. Hayashida brings to the LAII a distinguished record of scholarship and teaching on Latin America in the field of Archaeology, and a strong set of connections to scholars in South America. She recently published a co-edited volume Rethinking the Inka: Community, Landscape and Empire in the Southern Andes for which she was recently awarded the 2023 Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Book Prize for Scholarly Work. Read more
Dr. Heather Edgar, Professor of Anthropology, received a grant from the National Institute for Justice for her project Improving Identification for Missing and Murdered American Indians. She is the Director of the UNM Anthropology Bridge Lab and Forensic Anthropologist at the Office of the Medical Investigator. Dr. Edgar led the creation of the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID) (the first of its kind) which offers qualified researchers free access to more than 15,000 full-body CT scans, along with corresponding information about the deceased. Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice, the database is stored on systems at the UNM Center for Advanced Research Computing (CARC).
Dr. Loa Traxler is Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Museum Studies Program. The Museum Studies Program is an interdisciplinary course of study designed to provide students with academic training in essential aspects of museology. Dr. Traxler serves on the UNM Museum Council, the Historic Preservation Committee, and faculty committees in the Museum Research Traineeship Program, the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. She also serves on several professional committees including as Class III Chair (Social and Behavioral Sciences) for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Read more
"Dr. Garnett S. Stokes was installed as the 23rd president of The University of New Mexico on May 12, 2018. [In December 2022, the Board of Regents unanimously approved a five year contract extension due to broad support.] She is the first woman to hold the post in the university’s ... history. A tireless advocate for a transformative student experience, an empowered faculty, and a campus culture of continuous improvement, Stokes brings to New Mexico’s premiere R1 university more than four decades of experience and enthusiasm—as well as the unflagging energy needed to ensure The University of New Mexico thrives as a great place to work, live, and learn. Shortly after taking office in 2018, Stokes journeyed on an unprecedented statewide “listening tour,” covering 4,300 miles as she traveled through all 33 of New Mexico’s diverse counties. Her meetings with thousands of New Mexicans—hearing their stories, and learning of their hopes and expectations—helped frame her immediate presidential priorities of promoting campus safety, supporting student veterans, and advancing the University’s mission of world-class research. Stokes continues to hold regular office hours, routinely engaging with faculty, staff, and students for their input and commentary." Read more about Dr. Stokes work as University President
Dr. Stokes presented the State of the University address on March 4, 2024
"Dean Jennifer Malat came to the College of Arts & Sciences in August of 2023. Prior to this, she was associate vice president of development at Virginia Commonwealth University, dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU, and the inaugural associate dean and divisional dean for the social sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Cincinnati. Malat received her undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. From there, she received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan and spent the first 20 years of her career at the University of Cincinnati. Malat’s academic research on racial inequity in health has received federal funding and has appeared in top journals. She has dedicated her leadership career to equity issues as well, including by increasing the diversity of faculty and college leadership, ensuring fostering interdisciplinary approaches to inclusive education, and promoting community engagement. This work is integral to her leadership of the largest academic unit at UNM, where she leads 24 departments and schools, 26 research and academic programs, and nearly 1,000 faculty and staff at the College." Learn more
Dr. Donna Riley, the Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing "...is a leader in engineering education and inclusive excellence. She was a founding faculty member of the Picker Engineering Program at Smith College, the first engineering program at a U.S. women’s college, where she spent 13 years. In 2005, she received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for developing critical pedagogies for engineering classroom implementations. She is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and was elected vice president of scholarship for ASEE in 2023. Before joining UNM, she was the Kamyar Haghighi Head and Professor in the School of Engineering Education and Professor by courtesy in Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University. Previously, she was professor and interim head in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. From 2013-2015 she was program director for engineering education at the NSF. Riley is the author of two books, Engineering and Social Justice and Engineering Thermodynamics and 21st Century Energy Problems. She is the recipient of the 2016 Alfred N. Goldsmith Award from the IEEE Professional Communications Society, the 2012 Sterling Olmsted Award from ASEE, and the 2010 Educator of the Year award from Out to Innovate." Dr. Riley will be among eight recognized by the New Mexico Technology Council as a Women in Tech Award recipient on March 13, 2024. Learn more
"Senior Associate Dean [of the College of Arts and Sciences] Judy Bieber has been a member of the UNM Department of History since 1994. Prior to joining the UNM faculty, she earned her Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Anthropology from Rutgers University. Professor Bieber’s teaching and research focus is on Latin America and the Atlantic World, with a focus of the history of Brazil’s interior during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She explores the dynamics of cultural interactions among peoples of indigenous, African, and European descent in both her research and teaching. She publishes in both English and Portuguese-language scholarly venues, and in recent years has increased her engagement with scholars in Brazil, including those affiliated with the Antigo Regime nos Trópicos working group. Bieber has served on numerous college-level committees and has contributed service to the Spanish & Portuguese Department and the Latin American and Iberian Institute. She has a distinguished record of graduate and undergraduate teaching and advisement and was named UNM’s outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2015. Bieber finds inspiration in the successes of UNM’s diverse student body, faculty and staff and looks forward to supporting UNM’s mission in the role of Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences." Learn more
"Associate Dean [for Student Success in the College of Arts and Sciences] Sharon Nepstad has been a member of the UNM Department of Sociology and Criminology since 2009. Prior to joining the UNM faculty, she earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and held a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion. She previously held faculty positions at Regis University, Duquesne University, and the University of Southern Maine and was a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Nepstad’s expertise is in the areas of social movements and contentious politics, peace and conflict studies, and the sociology of religion. Her research has focused on the role of religion in mobilizing movements that aim to obstruct war, protect human rights, and promote democratization. She has also written extensively about nonviolent resistance in revolutionary struggles against authoritarianism. In 2021, she received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict. Nepstad has served in various capacities within UNM’s College of Arts and Sciences. From 2009-2012, she was the Director of Religious Studies. She served as the Chair of Sociology and Criminology from 2012-2014 and again from 2016-2021. Nepstad looks forward to working with departments within the College of Arts & Sciences to promote strong undergraduate and graduate initiatives that will enhance student success from admission through degree completion." Learn more
"Dr. Tiffany S. Lee (Diné /Lakota) is Dibé Łizhiní (Blacksheep) and born for Naałaní (Oglala Lakota). She is from Crystal, New Mexico, located on the Navajo Nation, on her mother’s side, and Pine Ridge, South Dakota on her father’s side. Dr. Lee is a Professor and Chair of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She earned her doctorate in Sociology of Education from Stanford University. Her research examines Native youth perspectives with regard to language reclamation and identity. She also investigates socio-culturally centered educational approaches. In 2016, she was awarded a grant from the Spencer Foundation to examine the impact of Indigenous language immersion schools on Native American student achievement."
"Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Professor and Chair of American Studies, also serves as the director of UNM's Institute for American Indian Research (IfAIR) and the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. As a commissioner on the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, she has advocated for Navajo women and the LGBTQI community. She has been recognized for her scholarship and service to her nation and community with several awards, including the Rainbow Naatsiilid True Colors for her support and advocacy on behalf of the Navajo LGBTQI and the UNM Faculty of Color Award for her teaching, research and service in the academy. In 2013, she was awarded the UNM Sarah Brown Belle award for service to her community. In the spring of 2015, she was recognized for Excellence in Diné Studies by the Navajo Studies Conference, Inc. She is also very proud to have been selected to deliver the inaugural address before the 23rd Navajo Nation Council upon their inauguration in January 2015. In 2017, she was awarded the UNM Presidential Award of Distinction." Learn more
Dr. Jennifer Denetdale (Diné) Receives $95,000 Grant for Navajo Nation Museum Exhibition Project
Dr. Julie Coonrod, Interim Dean of Anderson School of Management, is "...an Albuquerque native with a civil engineering background, Coonrod has been with UNM for 26 years, has been graduate dean for 10 years, and has consistently worked successfully with faculties across UNM as well as with the upper administration and external stakeholders. She is an active and strong voice on the Dean’s Council and with the [UNM] Office of Academic Affairs. This semester she is on special assignment as an ACE Fellow working in the president’s office at the University of Maryland College Park." Learn more
Roli Varma, PhD is the Carl Hatch Endowed Professor and UNM Regents' Lecturer in the UNM School of Public Administration. "Dr. Varma's research focuses on women and minorities in information technology, Asian immigrants in the science and engineering workforce, the management of industrial research, and professional ethics. Dr. Varma's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation. She is the author of Harbingers of Global Change: India's Techno-Immigrants in the United States (2006, 2007) and Managing Industrial Research Effectively (2006). Dr. Varma is an invited member of the Social Science Advisory Board of the National Center of Women in Information Technology (NCWIT) in the USA." Her most recent article Challenges and Opportunities: Asian Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics has been published in American Behavioral Scientist. Read more
Dr. Ellen Fisher, Vice President for Research, is "... a professor of Analytical, Physical, and Materials Chemistry and was the founding director of a cross-disciplinary initiative, the School of Advanced Materials Discovery (SAMD). She also has held numerous administrative and faculty positions during her 27-year career at CSU including assistant and associate professor of Chemistry, department chair, senior faculty advisor to the vice president for Research and University Research Integrity Officer. Fisher has worked across the CSU campus to provide leadership in several key areas including an effort to enhance faculty, graduate student, research & curricular improvements, strategic planning, budgets, facilities and space, advancement and competitive facility funding. She has also secured $6.8 million in research funding with more than 30 grants and over 160 refereed publications during her career." Learn more
"Dr. Kirsten Pai Buick [Chair of the Department of Africana Studies] is a Professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico where she has taught since 2001. She was a SAAM Predoctoral Fellow and a Charles Gaius Bolin Fellow at Williams College. Her recent publications have appeared in exhibition catalogs for artists such as Deborah Roberts, Augusta Savage, and an essay on Renee Stout that appears in the catalog for the VMFA exhibition The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse. Her work has been included in anthologies such as The Routledge Companion to African American Art History edited by Eddie Chambers; and in Race and Vision in the Nineteenth Century edited by Shirley Samuels. She lectures nationally and internationally. Buick is a recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize for African American Art and was named Distinguished Scholar by the College Art Association for 2022. She has published extensively on African American art, including her book Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject (Duke Univ. Press, 2010). Her second book, In Authenticity: “Kara Walker” and the Eidetics of Racism, is in progress." Read more
"Professor Kathy Powers is an Associate Professor of Political Science [and Associate Chair of the Department of Africana Studies] at the University of New Mexico. She is interested in the nature of institutional authority as well as institutional change and effects. Much of her present research focuses on the design of international institutions and law with respect to human rights, restorative justice, trade, and war. Specifically, she examines the institutional and legal determinants of transitional justice in the form of global reparations efforts following mass human rights violations, the international legal personality of international organizations, and how regional economic institutions that transform into military organizations impact war....She was recently awarded multiple fellowships to conduct research for her book Making Amends: The Institutional and Legal Landscape of Global Reparations while in residency at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.... An international relations scholar, Powers’ project at the Wilson Center was "Violence and Victim Redress - Understanding the Causes of Reparations: Bosnia and Herzegovina Transitional Justice Efforts in the Aftermath of Civil Conflict." Read more
Dr. Irene Vasquez "...holds the position of Founding Chair of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. Under her leadership, from 2013-2015, UNM established a Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and a Bachelors Degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies. She has a joint faculty position in Chicana and Chicano Studies and American Studies at UNM. She currently serves as the Department Chair in the Department of Chicana/o Studies. Vásquez specializes in the intersectional histories and politics of Mexican-descent populations in the Americas. Her research and teaching interests include U.S. and transnational social and political movements. She co-authored a book on the Chicana and Chicano Movement titled, Making Aztlan: Ideology and Culture of the Chicana and Chicano Movement: Ideology, 1966-1977, published by the University of New Mexico Press."
Dr. Barbara Rodriguez, Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, is the UNM Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. "Dr. Rodríguez is the co-Project Director of CLASS for ALL-NM, a collaborative personnel preparation training grant with New Mexico State University, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. This project is designed to train graduate students in bilingual speech-language pathology....[she] is the recipient of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Certificate for Special Contributions in Multicultural Affairs, an ASHA Diversity Champion, New Mexico Speech-Language and Hearing Association (NMSHA) Fellow, and NMSHA Honors of the Association [recipient]. She has held a number of leadership positions on local and national professional boards." Read more
"Dr. Assata Zerai serves as the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. Zerai’s research interests include African women’s access to mobile technology, making the work of marginalized scholars more accessible, and environmental justice/health activism.She has published five books spanning these topics, the latest of which is African Women, ICT and Neoliberal Politics: The Challenge of Gendered Digital Divides to People-Centered Governance (Routledge 2019)." Read more
"Dr. [Elizabeth Quay] Hutchison [Associate Vice President for Equity and Inclusion] is a Latin American historian specializing in twentieth-century Chilean women’s labor history, and a scholar-activist of human rights movements. Her published work includes the 2001 study of Chilean women’s labor, Labors Appropriate to Their Sex, The Chile Reader, and the forthcoming Workers Like all the Rest of Them: Domestic Service and the Rights of Labor in Twentieth-century Chile. At UNM Hutchison has served extensively in faculty governance, and in 2016 co-founded Faculty for a Sexual Assault-Free Environment at UNM (Faculty SAFE), an organization that channels faculty involvement to promote policy changes, strengthen support and advocacy, and advance research on campus sexual violence at UNM. This work has allowed Dr. Hutchison to collaborate with faculty, staff, students, and administrators on initiatives to support targets of sexual harassment, including the Presidential Task Force on Reporting Sexual Misconduct and Harassment and Supporting the UNM Community and the NASEM Action Collaborative for Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education. Dr. Hutchison speaks regularly at UNM and national conferences about faculty engagement in campus sexual violence response, and contributed “Making Campus Safer: Fighting Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment in Academia” to the forthcoming Academic’s Handbook." Learn more
Dr. Nancy López "...directs and co-founded the Institute for the Study of "Race" and Social Justice and she is the founding coordinator of the New Mexico Statewide Race, Gender, Class Data Policy Consortium. She is Associate Vice President for Equity and Inclusion. Dr. López also served as the inaugural co-chair of the Diversity Council and she has served on the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee. Dr. López is currently co-chair of the Education Committee of New Mexico Governors Council for Racial Justice. Dr. López is Secretary of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and she has chaired the committee on the status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Vice President of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS)." Read more
Dr. Tryphenia Peele Eady is the UNM College of Education Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion, and Faculty, an Associate Professor in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies, and holds a secondary faculty appointment in the UNM Department of Anthropology. She received her PhD from Claremont Graduate University in Anthropology and Linguistics, and conducts qualitative and ethnographic research focused on the education of African American children in school and non-school community settings as well as teaching and learning practices in the African American community. Read more
Dr. Julia Fulghum, is Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Special Assistant for Graduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. She also serves as the Director of Advance at UNM. "She came to UNM from Kent State University in 2002, where she was a faculty member in the Chemistry Department and a member of the Honors College. She is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society and currently serves as the co-chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a national user facility operated by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Her awards include the Student Service Provider of the Year from UNM Student Affairs in 2012, a NM Business Weekly Power Broker Award in 2010 and a Distinguished Teacher Award from Kent State University in 2001." Learn more
"Sherri Burr is the Dickason Chair and Regents Professor Emerita at the University of New Mexico School of Law....In 1994 she received tenure and promotion to full professor, becoming the first African American female to do so in New Mexico. In 2015, she was awarded a Monticello Fellowship to conduct research on the Free Blacks of Virginia, the hundreds of thousands of African-Americans who were free before the Civil War. Burr’s ancestors were among this group. Her 27th book, Complicated Lives: Free Blacks in Virginia, 1619-1865 was published in 2019 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History. Burr currently serves as President of New Mexico Press Women and the Third Vice President of the Aaron Burr Association." Read more
"University of New Mexico Distinguished Professor Felisa Smith has been named the honoree for the 68th Annual Research Lectureship for Career Achievement award. The ARL is one of the highest honors the University bestows on its faculty members in recognition of research and/or creative activity of exceptional merit. Each recipient is selected by their peers on the Faculty Senate Research Policy Committee...Smith is a distinguished professor in the UNM Department of Biology, and her research successes reach far beyond our university community...In 2021, Smith released a book, Mammalian Paleoecology: Using the Past to Study the Present. The book details the importance of past earth history by examining how animals, plants and ecosystems responded to past perturbation...Last year, in recognition of her outstanding research in Mammalogy for more than 10 years, Smith received the 2022 C. Hart Merriam Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. She was also the first Hispanic woman to be elected president of the American Society of Mammalogists in 2021. She was elected a fellow of the Paleontological Society in 2020, and is also the current president of the International Biogeography Society. Smith, who was also selected as a 2023 UNM Ovation awardee, recently published a paper in PNAS demonstrating how large mammal extinctions affect ecosystem resilience. The University’s Ovation awards recognize full-time faculty for recent cutting-edge research accomplishments that address local or global challenges, while elevating the University’s reputation on a national and international stage." Learn more
"National Institute of Flamenco (NIF) Executive Director and UNM Dance Professor Marisol Encinias has just been named a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) 2024 Advocacy Leadership Fellow. ...The NALAC is the nation’s premier nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development, and cultivation of the Latino arts field. Encinias was chosen as just one of 13 fellows to enhance cultural advocacy in her community. ...In addition to countless hours spent teaching, choreographing and performing flamenco across many different stages, especially at UNM, Encinias serves as the artistic director and curator of Festival Flamenco Alburquerque. Her newest work, MESTIZX (Feb 2024), is a work of flamenco dance theatre and is performed by UNM-hosted Yjastros: The American Flamenco Repertory Company. ...She has also helped found a charter school, Tierra Adentro, that offers a model of culturally relevant and academic success in New Mexico. This balance between education and community is one she hopes to perfect with this fellowship. ...Encinias invites the community to join her in this greater embrace of arts in New Mexico, by coming to the 37th Annual Festival Alburquerque at UNM in June. “These ideas of advocacy and what we’re trying to do will be put forward into the festival representation of artists and how we treat artists in the process,” she said. “I imagine once I’m exposed I will try to incorporate the ideas and experiences in that as an artist. It will probably have an influence on the work that we’re doing in June.” Learn more
About Women’s History Month
"Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year. In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women's History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women’s History Week." Learn more
White House A Proclamation on Women’s History Month, 2024
"During Women’s History Month, we celebrate the courageous women who have helped our Nation build a fairer, more just society. Throughout history, the vision and achievements of powerful women have strengthened our Nation and opened the doors of opportunity wider for all of us. Though their stories too often go untold, all of us stand on the shoulders of these sung and unsung trailblazers — from the women who took a stand as suffragists, abolitionists, and labor leaders to pioneering scientists and engineers, groundbreaking artists, proud public servants, and brave members of our Armed Forces." Read the full proclamation
The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. Learn more
The National Women's History Alliance
"The National Women’s History Month’s theme for 2024 celebrates “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.” The theme recognizes women throughout the country who understand that, for a positive future, we need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely from our lives and institutions. Women from every background have long realized that an uneven playing field will never bring equality or justice. Many feel the critical need to speak up and work harder for fairness in our institutions and social interactions. During 2024, we recognize the example of women who are committed to embracing everyone and excluding no one in our common quest for freedom and opportunity. They know that people change with the help of families, teachers and friends, and that young people in particular need to learn the value of hearing from different voices with different points of view as they grow up. Today, equity, diversity and inclusion are powerful driving forces that are having a wide-ranging impact on our country. As members of families, civic and community groups, businesses and legislative bodies, women are in the forefront of reevaluating the status quo. They are looking anew at what harmful social policies and behaviors exist and, often subtly, determine our future. In response, women in communities across the nation are helping to develop innovative programs and projects within corporations, the military, federal agencies and educational organizations to address these injustices." Learn more
The National Parks Service Celebrates Women's History
From the lives of young, immigrant women who worked the textile mills at Lowell National Historic Park to those of the female shipyard workers who were essential to the home front during World War II at Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historic Park, women’s history can be found at every park. If you want to understand our nation’s history, explore the remarkable legacies of American women.
In Memoriam
Dr. Ana Steffen: A Legacy of Science Leadership
National Trust for Historic Preservation
"Women’s history is America’s history. Female thinkers, activists, and trailblazers have shaped us into the nation we are today and continue to lead us forward. Yet only a small fraction of our cultural heritage recognizes women’s ever-present role in history, and far too often women's struggles and achievements have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately obscured."
National Women's Hall of Fame
"The National Women’s Hall of Fame is the nation’s first and oldest nonprofit organization and museum dedicated to honoring and celebrating the achievements of distinguished American women. In August 2020, the National Women’s Hall of Fame moved into the 1844 Seneca Knitting Mill, where it uses the stories of its 302 Inductees to inspire and engage all who visit."
Research
American Women: A guide to Women's History Resources at the Library of Congress
New York Historical Society Museum and Library Center for Women's History
"And Yet She Persisted" Biographies of New Mexico Women (New Mexico Archives Online)
UNM Taos Library: Indigenous Women's Voices (Books and eBooks)
UNM Researchers Show Gender Norms that Favor Women Reduce Gender Disparities in Health (Dr. Siobhan Mattison)
The History of Voting Rights in New Mexico, 1861-1865
Celebrating the Right to Vote in New Mexico
These 19 Black Women Fought for Voting Rights
Celebrating African-American Women in the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections
Women in the Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement and AACRN Listing Guidance (African American Civil Rights Network)
Library of Congress Women in the Civil Rights Movement (Articles and Essays)
The Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement are Black Women you've Never Heard Of
The Historical Marker Database: Founding Women of Albuquerque
15 Black Women Civil Rights Leaders You May Not Have Heard Of
Women in the Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement and AACRN Listing Guidance (African American Civil Rights Network)
Hidden Figures: The Story of NASA's Black Women Mathematicians Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden
Ruth Trinidad-Galván Social and Educational Justice Scholarship
UNM University Libraries Chicana and Chicano Collections (Archival)
Feminism: The First Wave
Feminism: The Second Wave
Feminism: The Third Wave
Feminism: The Fourth Wave
The Riot Grrrl Movement Introduced Me To Feminism. And I Wasn't The Only One
Transnational Feminism: Literary and Critical Theory
Transnational Feminist Approaches to Anti-Muslim Racism
Is the Transnational Female? Revisiting the Gender Metaphors of Global Connection
The Forgotten Movement That Changed American Women’s Lives
'Hood Feminism' Is A Call For Solidarity In A Less-Than-Inclusive Movement
UN Women: International Gender Equality and Empowerment for Women
Landmarks in the Global Movement for Women’s Rights: A Timeline
Spotlighting the Forgotten Women of the Surrealist Movement
The Other Art History: The Forgotten Women of Bauhaus
Feminist Dilemmas: How to Talk About Gender-Based Violence in Relation to the Middle East?
Rise Up in Mirth: On Angry Feminist Humor and Why Taking It Personally Is Political
UNM Anthropology Alumna Dr. Jill Ahlberg Yohe has published Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (University of Washington Press) and co-produces “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists,” which opened June 2, 2019 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), and is now a touring exhibit. The exhibit shines a light on over a thousand years of art made by Native American women. It rests on the premise that the role of women in Native communities has gone widely ignored in the mainstream American art world, and the United States at large. Read more on the UNM Anthropology website and the New York Times Watch a conversation with the Curator and Artists:
Watch this Interview with Dr. Michelle Brown, UNM Postdoctoral Alumna
News
Deb Haaland: One for the History Books
Women are Falling Behind
Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest
UNM Women's Resource Center Awarded $300,000 Grant
Historic Markers on UNM Campus Celebrate New Mexico Women
Maxwell Presents Art by Indigenous Women
A Milestone Century for Women's Rights: Celebrating Passage of the 19th Amendment
New Mexico Technology Council Recognizes 2021 Women in Technology Honorees
UNM Professor Emerita Janet (Jan) Roebuck [First Woman Chair of UNM Department of History] Dies
Goddess of the Skies: How One Woman Changed an Industry
Burr's Service to Communities Continues
9 Women Civil Rights Leaders to Celebrate this Black History Month
UNM Staff Members Named Women of Influence by Albuquerque Business First
'Me Too' Founder Tarana Burke Says Black Girls' Trauma Shouldn't Be Ignored
A Newly Issued US Quarter Celebrates Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller
UNM Alumna Named Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
Mary Golda Ross, the First Known Native American Female Engineer, Is Being Honored With a New Statue
Patsy Mink was the First Woman of Color Elected to Congress. Now, her Daughter Reflects on her Legacy Amid Rise in Anti-Asian Violence
President Biden Nominates Olympic Figure Skating Silver Medalist Michelle Kwan as Ambassador to Belize
Women at NASA
Albuquerque Appoints City's First Ever Woman Fire Chief
GW Students Add 'Morning-After' Pill Vending Machine to Campus
Pueblo Governor Inspiring New Mexico's Pueblo Women
UNM Students Advocate for Sexual Assault Victim Legislation
An Eye Toward a Breakthrough: Highlighting the Women of UNM and their Research
Celebrating Forty Years of This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave
Riley Ready to Lead as Dean of the School of Engineering
UNM Ph.D. Candidate Awarded NIH Fellowship
NOVA, UNM to Announce New Victim Assistance Group
Biden Picks Female Admiral to Lead Navy. She'd Be First Woman on Joint Chiefs of Staff
UNM HSC Hosts First Annual GoGirl Empowerment Summit
Women in Technology hosts 'Empowerment - Live Without Limits'
Women's Resource Center recruits for Victim Advocacy Corps
UNM Engineering Dean Selected as New Mexico Women in Tech Awardee
Flamenco Professor and Director named National Fellow
How Bicycles Changed Women’s Lives
Organizations
The Innovation Academy for Women in the Americas
The Cite Black Women Collective
The UNM Women's Resource Center
UNM Anderson School of Managment Advancement of Women in Leadership
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
Association for Women in Science (AWIS)
500 Women Scientists
UN Women
Women for Women
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Women Deliver
Global Fund for Women
UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency
Women's Refugee Commission
Center for Women Veterans (CWV)
Ms. Foundation For Women
Women Pioneers in the Field of Anthropology
SIX GROUNDBREAKING [British] FEMALE ARCHAEOLOGISTS
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), Margaret Mead’s teacher and close companion, was one of the first women to be widely regarded as a leader in an academic field. Her book, Patterns of Culture, has been translated into 14 languages and is still widely read in college classrooms. Read more at the National Women's Hall of Fame
Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ (Ella Cara Deloria) (1889-1971) was an educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist. An authority on the Dakota and Lakota Sioux, she was one of the first anthropologists of Native American descent to rise to prominence. Among many publications, she wrote the prized novel Waterlily (first published in 1988 after her death). Read more about prominent indigenous feminist scholars
Margaret Mead (1901-1978), cultural anthropologist and author of the groundbreaking work, Coming of Age in Samoa, is one of the best known anthropologists of all time. Her anthropological work is said to have influenced the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Mary Leakey (1913-1996), paleoanthropologist, discovered 15 new species of animal and made some of the most important fossils discoveries of all time, including Proconsul, Zinjanthropus, and the Laetoli footprints. She is one of few anthropologists to have her own postage stamp and a Google doodle in her memory.
Hinsha Waste Agli Win (Dr. Beatrice Medicine) (1923-2005), cultural anthropologist described as a “woman of action” who was the sacred pipe holder for the Sun Dance at Sitting Bull’s Camp in 1977 and was awarded the most distinguished award of Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the American Anthropological Association in 1996.
Dr. Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1936-1990) developed the sequence of Archaic culture for Oshara during her work in the Arroyo Cuervo area of northwestern New Mexico (1973). Irwin-Williams also served as president of the Society for American Archaeology (1977-1979), she is only the second woman to hold this position. She also taught at Eastern New Mexico University (1964-1982), she was the executive director of the Social Science Center, Desert Research Institute (DRI) of Reno, Nevada (1982), and a research professor at Quaternary Science Center, DRI, until her passing (1988-1990).
Jane Goodall (1934--), primatologist and biological anthropologist, is one of the first scientists to conduct studies of wild primates. Her groundbreaking studies of wild chimpanzees at Gombe documented family relationships, tool use, hunting, and warfare, and are said to have redefined what it means to be human. Goodall has written more than 20 books and is a United National Messenger for Peace.
Dorothy Garrod (1892-1968) was an influential archaeologist in the paleolithic context; she found the first pieces of evidence that demonstrated the mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age. During Garrod's 45 years as a prehistoric archaeologist she was the first to extensively research early prehistory and lithic research. Garrod's work allowed archaeologists during and after her lifetime to continue her work and uncover information about the paleolithic era and early human origins. Garrod's work also broke through the barriers of women in the archaeological field, becoming the first woman professor at the University of Cambridge.
Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was an archaeologist recruited by British Intelligence during the first World War due to her knowledge of and experience with Arabic cultures. Later, as Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq, she established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Her 1905 expedition through the Syrian Desert to Asia Minor was published as The Desert and the Sown and her study, in 1907, of Binbirkilise on the Kara Dag mountain was published as The Thousand and One Churches and remains the standard work on early Byzantine architecture in Anatolia.
Hannah Marie Wormington-Volk (1914-1994), a Paleo Indian archaeologist, was the second woman admitted to study in the Harvard anthropology department and the first woman to obtain a doctorate degree in anthropology (1954). She was the first female archaeologist to be elected president of the Society for American Archaeology and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970. In 1983, the Society of American Archaeology awarded her the Distinguished Service Award, she was the first female archaeologist to receive the award.
Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1888-1885) was a British paleoanthropologist who inaugurated the first archaeological and geological survey of the Northern Fayum (Egypt) where she uncovered two Neolithic cultures 1924-28 under the auspices of the British School of Archaeology and then the Royal Anthropological Institute. Her 1932 book The Desert Fayoum was illustrated by Mary Leakey.
