Anthropology graduate students receive Fulbright awards

The Department of Anthropology proudly announces that two graduate students, Ashlee Hart and Michael Surrett, both received Fulbright awards for the 2017-18 academic year.

With the Fulbright Award, Ashlee Hart will conduct archaeological research in Septemvri, Bulgaria for 10 months beginning in September 2017. She is interested in the choices involved in the manufacture and consumption of ceramics from Late Iron Age Thrace, located in western Bulgaria. Specifically, Hart will examine the ways in which variables in the creation of Thracian ceramics may have been impacted by intercultural interaction, especially noting interaction with Greek trading settlements created during this period. The results intend to show the ways Thracians experienced and reacted to Greek colonization consciously and unconsciously through the production of material culture.

Michael Surrett was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant to fund 10 months of anthropological fieldwork in eastern Indonesia (Maluku) to collect data for his dissertation project. His research focuses on Papuan groups who have moved from Indonesian New Guinea (West Papua) to the Moluccan islands in pursuit of jobs or to raise their standard of living during Indonesia's era of decentralized governance. Surrett is especially interested in how these groups are redefining their local identities as they engage with Indonesia's growing involvement in today's global market and gain a larger stake in the development of their own communities through elected local leadership under decentralization.

Hart and Surrett are among the seven undergraduate and graduate student Fulbright recipients from UB.