Scott Worman is the featured speaker next week for the Ruth E. Kennedy Award Lecture at UNM. The lecture titled, “People, a Plague on the Planet? Exploring the causes of ecological degradation in Islamic Portugal” begins at 4 p.m. in Hibben Center Room 105 on Thursday, March 5.
Born in northeastern Honduras to globetrotting New Mexican parents, Scott Worman grew up in such exotic locales as Central America, Las Cruces, Botswana and Kansas. After graduating from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, he returned to New Mexico. He entered the graduate program in anthropology at UNM in 2000 and received his MS in 2002.
Worman completed his dissertation research in southern Portugal, using geological and archaeological techniques to investigate human impacts on the environment since the fall of the Roman Empire. For the past decade, he also has worked as an archaeologist and geoarchaeologist in and around New Mexico, excavating sites from Roswell to Chaco, and from the Tularosa Basin to Trinidad, Colorado.
Archaeological investigations of human impacts on the environment involve a series of related research problems: demonstrating when and how the environment changed in the past; examining whether human environment interactions during the past two millennia in a study area in southern Portugal.
Information from archaeological excavations and historical texts provides insight into the context of those choices, with implications for understanding environmental degradation in the modern world.
The Anthropology Colloquia Series is sponsored by the Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies, the UNM Department of Anthropology, Maxwell Museum Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Ruth E. Kennedy award is given annually to an advanced Ph.D. candidate with an exceptional academic record. The Ruth E. Kennedy Award was established by Edwin L. Kennedy to honor the memory of his wife who had an abiding interest in public education.
For more information about the lecture, please contact Mary Beth Hermans (505) 277-1400.