Buikstra
selected for UNM’s highest faculty honor
UNM
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Jane E. Buikstra has
been selected as the Universitys 48th Annual Research
Lecturer, the highest honor UNM bestows upon faculty.
The title
of the public lecture she will deliver on Monday, Sept. 29,
at 7:30 p.m. in the UNM Continuing Education Auditorium, 1634
University Blvd. NE, is Dialogues with the Dead: Mummies,
Monuments, and Mallquis.
Mallqui,
Buikstra says, is a Quechua (the language spoken by the
Indian peoples of Peru and other South American countries) word
that means ancestor.
Buikstras
selection was made by the UNM Research Policy Committee and
recommended to then-UNM President F. Chris Garcia by Dr. Terry
Yates, UNM vice provost for Research.
Buikstra,
who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987,
joined the UNM Department of Anthropology in 1995. One of her
areas of specialization is bioarchaeology. What I do,
she says, is study cemeteries and, particularly, the human
remains found in cemeteries. Ive had the privilege of
doing this in several world areas.
During
her career, Buikstra has developed new and more rigorous methods
for determining, from osteological remains, the health and demographic
characteristics of prehistoric peoples, particularly those who
lived in the Americas. Her research is multidisciplinary and
includes work in archaeology and the medical sciences. Much
of her recent efforts have focused on researching the history
and evolution of tuberculosis and its impact on past societies.
Buikstra,
the recipient of numerous grant awards, has held previous faculty
and research positions at the University of Chicago, Northwestern
University, the Field Museum of Natural History and the University
of Florida, among others. Awarded many honors, she is a recent
recipient of the Bruch Fellowship in Theoretic Medicine and
Allied Sciences (Smithsonian Institution).
She received
her bachelor of arts degree, 1967, from DePauw University; her
master of arts degree, 1969, and her Ph.D., 1972, both from
the University of Chicago; all in anthropology.