anthropology research proposal

Anthropology

Thesis Proposals

Students wishing to write a thesis (fieldwork- or library-based) must submit a proposal to the department, due on the Friday before spring break of their junior year.  Essay writers do not need to submit a research proposal.   

Your proposal should include all of the following elements. Be sure to include your name, and save the file as a word document titled "YourName.ThesisProposal." Proposals should be no more than 5 double-spaced pages, excluding the bibliography. The thesis proposal is due the Friday before Spring Break . All documents should be uploaded to the  Thesis (and Ethics) Proposal Moodle . 

How to write a thesis proposal

A proposal should set out what you want to do, how you hope to do it, and why it’s worth doing. It should also make clear that you have done the necessary preliminary research (literature review, understanding of the topic, and, where relevant, the history of your particular geographical area) to embark on a successful independent research project. Thus, consider how your project builds on and contributes to anthropological knowledge in your chosen area. Your proposal should also include an estimation of expenses, in time and money. This will allow you to compete for departmental funding, and also demonstrate that you have thought through the practicality and feasibility of your project plan.    

Anthropologists often deviate from what we initially plan to do. Fieldwork is an interactive process that depends on other people and is largely aimed at understanding what is important to others. So, a proposal is read only in part as a statement of what you will do; in part it is read as evidence of how well you can formulate a problem, think of ways to investigate it, and link it to other issues.

Your proposal should include all of the following elements: 

1. Introduction

In one paragraph, explain what do you want to do, how, and why. Why does this research matter?

2. Background

A. Research Location(s) : Identify the research site and describe the historical and contemporary factors relating to this site that are relevant to your research. What will your research add to our knowledge of this part of the world?

B. Literature Review: What have others (especially anthropologists!) written about your topic and/or area? Given what has already been written on the topic, why is your research important? What will it contribute to our knowledge, within the discipline of anthropology or within another field of scholarly interest? Are there debates in the literature to which your research will contribute? Does your research test out old assumptions and/or take ideas in a new direction? Discuss comparable studies and explain how your research is similar to or different from them. If there is limited work in your chosen area, consider whether there are similar processes going on in other parts of the world. How will your research scale up from a local site/problem to broader analytical or theoretical questions or problems? In short, explain how your research will expand on existing anthropological ideas and how it promises to advance our understanding of the world or a particular problematic. This is also the place to state the main research questions guiding your work.

A. What methods will you use? To get what sort of information? How will your methodology produce information that you can link into an argument or description? Will your methods provide cross-checks on one another, or multiple ways to understand your research site or topic? If your methods are a signal improvement on existing ones in the field, offering the promise of more precise, more reliable, more abundant or more complete results, say so, and say why.

B. Analysis: Be sure you indicate not only what you want to find out and how you will go about it, but also how you plan to make sense of what you discover. How are you going to organize the material you learn? What tools will you use to analyze the information gathered in participant observation, or interview (for example)? Also, make sure to explain how you will gather the contextual information (background, regional history, other necessary social or political context) needed to support the more specific argument you hope to make.

4. Timetable and budget

Include key dates and all estimated expenses, as well as a budget for what you want the department to support.

5. Significance and Style

What contribution do you hope your project will make to anthropological literature and ideas? What kind of ethnography do you plan to produce: a life history, a problem-oriented ethnography, a comparative survey, a personal narrative, etc.? Is the style of the ethnography important for the work you hope to do?

6. Preliminary Bibliography

Make sure to provide a thorough list of sources you have consulted for your project: this will demonstrate that you have undertaken the necessary preparation for a project of this scale and magnitude.

Other guides to writing research proposals that might be helpful to explore:

* Sydel Silverman, “Writing Grant Proposals for Anthropological Research” for Wenner-Gren available here

* Michael Watts, "The Holy Grail: In Pursuit of the Dissertation Proposal" at UC Berkeley available here

The Anthropology Department's Ethics and Thesis Proposal Review Committee, composed of all faculty members in residence in any given spring semester, will review the Ethics Questionnaire and Thesis Research Proposals. Details regarding the review process can be found  here .   

--> see the Guidelines for the Ethics Questionnaire

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Tips for Writing a Research Proposal for Anthropology Departmental Honors

Every research project needs to begin with an original research proposal. Any good proposal does at least two things: it articulates an interesting question or goal, and it lays out a plan for answering that question or achieving that goal.

A good proposal will tell a varied reviewer audience why your project is novel, describe its significance to your discipline, present a detailed methodology or course of action, detail the preparation and resources that you have lined up to date, and commit to a final product that will contribute to the academic community’s understanding of your topic.

The ideal format and language for such a proposal will vary with the audience at hand and the project in question. Different departments, programs and agencies have different requirements in terms of the size and scope of the proposal. Regardless of format, length, or organization, a good proposal will address the following topics.

Aim and Scope 

What is the goal of your project? What question do you want to answer? What hypothesis do you wish to test? What themes do you want to explore?

Background & Context

Provide the reader with enough information to understand the nature of the project.

Significance 

Why are your questions intellectually important? What does the academic community in your chosen field (as represented in peer-reviewed literature) already understand about your topic? How will your project contribute to this literature? How will your objectives and methods challenge the discipline? What form will your final product take, and how will it be evaluated?

Methodology

What, precisely, will you do to answer the question you are posing? How is the data, analysis, or interpretation provided by your methodology logically linked to your stated goal? When and how will you take each of the steps towards achieving these goals? What logistical hurdles will you encounter? A timeline can give reviewers a clear picture of how you project will unfurl. When will you start your project, and when will you finish it? What milestones will help you gauge your progress? How will you coordinate your core research activities with your preliminary work (such as directed reading) and your post-project analysis (such as writing)?

How will you draw on the expertise of your faculty mentor? Are there other contact people who will be instrumental in your project? Are you seeking, or have you received, any other sources of funding? Are there additional datasets or pieces of equipment that you will rely on?

Preparation & Qualifications

What specific steps have you taken to prepare for this project? Have you taken courses in the methods or statistics that directly relate to the project design you described above? If you will conduct research off campus, how do you plan to train (in the classroom or otherwise) for the cultural, ethical, and safety challenges associated with research travel? Have you initiated contact with people (at field sites or other institutions) who will be critical to your project’s success?

Include a table specifying a timeline for project design, data collection, data analysis, and write up.

You may find that you need to present a separate budget — a line-item description of the funding that you need to cover your expenses. How much money do you need, and what will it be used for? How do each of these expenses contribute to the logistical demands of your methodology? A well-conceived budget provides reviewers with insight into the state of your logistical planning.

A Good Research Proposal

A good research proposal is not written at the last minute! A compelling account of the project you wish to pursue will take shape only with repeated revision, drawing on feedback from your faculty mentor, other advisers, and your fellow researchers. By involving your mentor in your proposal from the start, you stand to benefit even more from his or her expertise in your field. Similarly, faculty members who have seen early drafts of your proposal can direct you to the most appropriate grant programs, offer you the best advice on project design, and refer your to other useful resources on campus.

A good research proposal is concise! Reviewers are often faced with hundreds of proposals at a time, and a clear writing style will help move your proposal to the "short stack." You should give your proposal a descriptive title and make your main objectives and motives explicit in an opening summary that is easily understood by non-specialists. Long proposals are rarely read thoroughly, and short proposals that are well written will contain as much information.

Anthropology Department

Writing a thesis proposal in anthropology.

Look at model thesis proposals (below)!

Every research project should begin with an original research proposal. Any good proposal does at least two things: it articulates an interesting question or goal, and it lays out a plan for answering that question or achieving that goal.

A good thesis proposal will tell varied readers why your project is novel, describe its significance to anthropology, present a detailed methodology or course of action, detail the preparation and resources that you have lined up to date, and commit to a final product that will contribute to broader understandings of your topic and research problem.

Thesis proposals also work for you, the researcher. They are an important way to begin the process of making your thesis project real, of committing to a particular anthropological problem and approach, and of demarcating a feasible topic and methodology. Thesis proposals can also jumpstart your planning for how you will manage your thesis research and writing. How will you proceed? What are the likely primary and secondary sources you will use? Within what theoretical discourses will you situate yourself? What useful methodological strategies might you identify?

To prepare for this, go back to your course notes and look at anthropological theory and other adjacent social theory writings that particularly intrigued or inspired you, then look at ethnographic books and articles and consider the authors' research methods and their primary sources or data. Are there theories, methodologies and forms of data you would like to draw on and/or emulate? 

Consider as well what you are most curious and passionate about. You will be living and  breathing this research project over your senior year! Still, your project should challenge you , it should take you outside of your current knowledge, past experience, and immediate environment. 

The Proposal

There are multiple ways to organize a thesis proposal. To cover the most important information, yours should include the following sections in this order (each section should be be set off with a subtitled heading).

1) Title: get the readers' attention

Your title should be descriptive and concise. It can be divided into two sections before and after a colon (:). You should aim to include all or most of the key words that pertain to your proposed research, but there's an art to good titling!

2) Problem: provide a succinct statement (one paragraph)

Research is not a summary of what is available on a given topic but an original analysis of a specific problem. A research problem is distinct from a topic in that it is more specific and orients research toward an analysis or solution; your research problem should generate research questions.

Research questions should be complex. If you already know the answer to the question, or if it can be answered through a few simple inquiries, it is not addressing an adequate research problem. Your research problem should be a conundrum, a lacuna, or a multi-faceted issue you want to illuminate and better understand. It should also require you to look at multiple sources. In introducing your research problem in your thesis proposal, you should provide a succinct statement which will help you to remain focused on the issue that you are addressing and how the information you will be discussing is related to that issue. This should not just be a list of questions !

3) Background: create a common ground of understanding and enter into the scholarly conversation

In order for the reader to understand the issue you are presenting, it is necessary to provide a context. In a thesis proposal, that section provides a brief overview of the larger issues and ideas of your topic, and how this specific research problem relates to these larger issues. Whatever you choose to highlight, the reader should be convinced that your research will contribute to understandings of broader social, historical or cultural issues.  

Provide a brief literature review. A research project should be original, rather than reproducing existing literature on the topic. Yet it is helpful to consider any current research as part of a scholarly conversation. This is an opportunity to begin that conversation by reviewing the anthropological (and adjacent) research to date, indicating what aspects of it your project will build upon and the ways that your proposed research differs from what has already been done. You should be able to identify themes that emerge from the existing research as well as its shortcomings. Or, you may find that what exists on the topic is truly excellent, but that it doesn’t account for the specific problem you have identified. I n this section, you should also clarify the anthropological (and adjacent) theories you will use to conceptualize your project and identify specific sources you will draw on for those theories.  

4) Methodology: Explain how you will do the thesis research

What, precisely, will you do to answer the question you are posing? With your main research problem and questions in mind, this section should answer the questions of where, who, how, and whe n. Will you conduct ethnographic fieldwork or will you be doing an archival project? What will be your primary sources of data? (e.g., a particular archive online or in a specific institution, social media communities or posts, participant observation, interviews, online media and advertisements, specific texts).

Here you need to convince the reader that your proposed methodology, your primary data, and modes of analysis or interpretation are logically linked to your stated questions or goals. You also need to convince the reader that this approach will be feasible (in the relatively short time period of the senior thesis) and credible (e.g., you have the specific language/course training, relevant work or travel experience and/or contacts to carry out the work). 

Optionally, you could provide a rough timeline or work plan for the thesis project here. This can help you begin the planning process and give readers a clear picture of how your project will unfurl. When and how will you take each of the steps towards achieving your goals? What logistical hurdles might you encounter? 

5) Significance and Style: Why does this matter? (one paragraph)

This should be a very brief summation of the importance of your thesis project. What contribution do you hope your project will make to anthropological debates and ideas? How might it challenge or expand on previous work?

Optionally, you could state here what kind of final product you plan to produce: a historical analysis? a new theory? a life history, a problem-oriented ethnography, a comparative study, a personal narrative, etc.? Will the project be multimodal? How? Is the style of the ethnography important for the work you hope to do?

6) Bibliography: Cite your sources!

This should include the sources you have to date or think you should consult, which link up with your stated research problem, methodology and literature review. In addition, all references cited in earlier sections of the proposal should be included here. You should use the Chicago Manual of style author-date system for citations and references.

Model Anthropology Thesis Proposals

These thesis proposals model the format and kind of project plans the Department is looking for in a strong thesis proposal. They demonstrate effort in preliminary research into potential primary and secondary sources, and first stab thoughts about both the topic and the research problem and questions that will organize the project. Note that the thesis did not necessarily turn out to be this project exactly, but they did get the authors off to a great start.

• Arianna Aguirre Thesis Proposal 2023
• Eva Gallardo Thesis Proposal 2023
• Sienna Otero Thesis Proposal 2023
• Anna Romo Thesis Proposal 2023

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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

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Research Papers and Proposals

Read past papers.

• Log in to the Second-Year Paper Archive to find recent research papers.
• Review past dissertations .

Students are required to complete a Second Year Qualifying Paper, a Dissertation Proposal, and a Dissertation. Evaluation of the papers and the dissertation proposal is determined by a committee composed of the student’s advisor and two or more additional faculty members.  Students will be evaluated for continuation in the graduate program, for Graduate (Teaching) Assistantships, and for summer fieldwork using grades in course work, faculty evaluations and a specific evaluation of the second and third year paper/proposal requirements.

Second Year

Second-year students will prepare a Research Paper to be completed in the Spring Quarter of the second year.

• Paper subject: The paper should be based on original fieldwork, laboratory or library research and should be suitable for publication.
• Paper format: Conform to the study style required by a major journal in the field of the student's interest (e.g., American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, American Antiquity, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, etc.). Each paper must be accompanied by a one-page abstract in a style appropriate to the format of the relevant professional journal. Although usually not required, a table of contents is a useful addition to better organize material.
• Associated courses: Each second-year student registers for Anthro 590 "Research" with the faculty member who will serve as adviser for the Research Paper.  Students should work closely with their adviser and utilize all resources that are available through the expertise of their readers and other faculty.

Exception: Second-year students who entered the program with M.A. transfer credit will be expected to meet the requirements of third-year students by submitting a Dissertation Proposal .

Third-year students prepare a formal Dissertation Proposal that will be presented before the student's dissertation research committee at a formal dissertation proposal defense. Each student should work closely with his/ her adviser on the preparation of the dissertation proposal.

• Proposal format: Students should be prepared to adapt the form of the proposal to the differing requirements of various funding agencies, and should bear in mind that preparation of an acceptable proposal is time-consuming for both students and faculty.
• Proposal deadline: The proposal should be started during the second year and completed early in the third year of graduate work because of funding agency deadlines, which cluster in October to early January. Special care should be taken with this requirement since the funding of fieldwork depends almost entirely on the quality of the proposal.  

Paper and Proposal Evaluation

Papers will be evaluated according to the degree to which they:

• Demonstrate graduate level writing skills, including structural coherence
• Have a clear analytic argument that is well‐substantiated
• Demonstrate command of a body of literature related to the proposed dissertation project
• Evidence an accurate understanding of scholarly arguments
• Contain rigorous treatment of scholarly sources, data, their connections, and their implications
• Show promise of theoretical/ethnographic innovation or intervention

Your advisor and/or your committee will give you comments on the very first draft of your paper. This phase will focus on the broader issues and your professors will provide you with feedback on the research you need to do to complete your paper. Your entire committee will give you comments on the next‐to‐final draft. This phase focuses on remaining issues that are often smaller in scope and significance. Your committee expects a complete draft, properly formatted, referenced, and proofread, for this next‐to‐final draft.

It is reasonable to expect members of your committee to:

• Read through both drafts carefully
• Give you comments, either orally or in writing
• Make suggestions for improving the paper in terms of structure, content etc.
• Make suggestions for further reading

It is not reasonable to expect members of your Committee to:

• Read and comment at short notice (less than a week)
• Give you a detailed check‐list of everything you must do
• Give you a complete list of everything you need to read
• Copy‐edit and/or proof‐read the paper

Your papers will be evaluated by your committee at the June faculty meeting and will be given one of the following assessments: pass, no pass, pass after acceptable rewrite, acceptable for terminal M.A.

  “Pass” : This evaluation permits a student to continue in the Ph.D. program. The student is eligible, but not guaranteed, financial aid.

  “Pass after acceptable rewrite” : This evaluation permits a student to continue course work in the Ph.D. program, but the student will not be eligible for advancement to candidacy until the paper is rewritten and accepted by the student’s committee. After the committee accepts the paper/proposal, the student will be eligible for financial aid.

“Acceptable for terminal M.A.” : (Second‐year Research Paper): This evaluation means that the quality of the student’s work meets the Department’s standards for the Master’s Degree, but is not sufficiently high quality to permit the student to continue in the Ph.D. program. The student may be eligible for a Master’s Degree if all other requirements are met.

“No pass” : This evaluation means that the quality of the student’s work meets neither the standards required of students continuing in the Ph.D. program, nor the standards required for the Master’s Degree. The student will not be permitted to continue in the Department, nor will he/she receive a Master’s Degree, regardless of the student’s grade‐point average.

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Why Write a Research Proposal?

How to write a research proposal.

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• The Fullbright program  guide

This guide will aid you in writing a research proposal. 

Research proposals are necessary for acquiring research grants. However, they are not written like typical essays. Research proposals require you to present multiple arguments. Firstly, they must demonstrate that your research problem is worthwhile. Secondly, they must argue that you can conduct the necessary research to solve it. 

Before beginning to write a research proposal, make sure you have thoroughly read the application requirements. You should also determine what voice and terminology to use, considering your audience.  

Research proposals have four main parts (listed below). However, not all research proposals will look exactly like this. It is important to structure your research proposal according to the application requirements. 

• The Introduction. The introduction should briefly introduce your research problem, and explain why you want to investigate it. 
• The Research Question . The second part of your proposal should be an in-depth look at your research problem. You should explain why your research is important and investigate similar research in the field (if any is available). You will likely find that similar research exists, but is partially incomplete. You should demonstrate what is currently missing from the scholarly conversation, and explain why your research can "patch" this hole. 
• What research methods are appropriate in solving my research question?
• What method am I choosing and why? What are its benefits and drawbacks?
• What population am I testing? How am I ensuring a reliable control? 
• How can I ensure neutrality and consistency? How sound is my research?
• How does my research method applicably solve my research problem? 
• The Logistics.  After presenting your research methods, you should commit to a timetable. You should present a reasonable schedule and budget. Then, you should explain how you intend to stay on track with these limits. 
• The Conclusion . Finally, you should concisely wrap up your proposal. In doing this, highlight the importance of your research once more. 

Don't forget to include a well-formatted bibliography, and to cite any referenced information!

This article , on the U.S. National Library of Medicine's website, provides more in-depth information on writing research proposals. 

Additional Tips 

1. Don't be shy of adding personal anecdotes. Research proposals are usually "sterile" texts, but it's okay to let through some personality. Oftentimes, a story can explain your interest in a research question. 

2. Be concise. Research proposals are not research papers. It's important to be well-researched, but the approval committee may be tempted to skim-read an overly-lengthy proposal. 

3. Pay attention to your bibliography. A good research proposal should draw from existing research, and cite it accordingly. Like grammatical errors, improper citations are unprofessional and they suggest that your proposal was rushed. 

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The purpose of this guide is to help you:

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• Teach you strategies to develop keywords to find articles on your chosen topic in anthropological journals.

If you have questions, feel free to contact me for help!

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Social Anthropology

How to write a research proposal

You will need to submit a research proposal with your PhD application. This is crucial in the assessment of your application and it warrants plenty of time and energy.

Your proposal should outline your project and be around 1,500 words.

Your research proposal should include a working title for your project.

Overview of the research

In this section, you should provide a short overview of your research. You should also state how your research fits into the research priorities of your particular subject area.

Here you can refer to the research areas and priorities of a particular research grouping or supervisor.

You must also state precisely why you have chosen to apply to the discipline area and how your research links into our overall profile.

Positioning of the research

This should reference the most important texts related to the research, demonstrate your understanding of the research issues, and identify existing gaps (both theoretical and practical) that the research is intended to address.

Research design and methodology

This section should identify the information that is necessary to carry out the analysis and the possible research techniques that could deliver the information.

Your research proposal will be used to assess the quality and originality of your ideas, whether you are able to think critically and whether you have a grasp of the relevant literature. It also gives us important information about the perspectives you intend to take on your research area, and how you fit into the department's research profile overall. This is helpful when assigning a supervisor.

Flexibility

You will not be forced to follow the proposal exactly once you have started to study. It is normal for students to refine their original proposal, in light of detailed literature review, further consideration of research approaches and comments received from your supervisors (and other academic staff).

Pitfalls to avoid

We sometimes have to reject students who meet the academic requirements but have not produced a satisfactory research proposal, therefore:

• Make sure that your research idea, question or problem is very clearly stated and well-grounded in academic research.
• Make sure that your proposal is well focused and conforms exactly to the submission requirements described here.
• Poorly specified, jargon-filled or rambling proposals will not convince us that you have a clear idea of what you want to do.

The University uses electronic systems to detect plagiarism and other forms of academic malpractice and for assessment. All Humanities PhD programmes require the submission of a research proposal as part of the application process. The Doctoral Academy upholds the principle that where a candidate approaches the University with a project of study, this should be original. While it is understandable that research may arise out of previous studies, it is vital that your research proposal is not the subject of plagiarism.

Find a supervisor

Exploring our research specialisms will help you to match your proposal idea to a suitable supervisor.

Current PhD students

Get inspiration from some of our current students about the type of research topics you can pursue.

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ANTHRO 3626 - Research Design/Proposal Writing

Semester: , offered: .

Prof. Gabriella Coleman W 3:00 PM - 5:45 PM

This course is part seminar, part practicum. Its purpose is to help students conceptualize and design a research project, to craft effective research and grant proposals, and to prepare for ethnographic and archival work. The first and longest part of the course will focus on formulating a researchable project, in all its various elements; how to write a statement of problem, to frame arguments/theses, to situate work in the appropriate anthropological literature/s, to develop a methodological approach, and techniques, commensurate with the objectives and claims of the study, and to make a case for its significance and contribution to the discipline. To the extent time permits, the class will also pursue a secondary objective: imparting professional skills, primarily in the area of writing and publishing, but also in oral presentation, that will be useful to students throughout their professional lives.

By permission only. The class is open to third year social anthropology students who have done most of the background reading for their PhD dissertation research and are actively working on a formal research proposal, of which they have a draft in hand.

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WRITING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL in ANTHROPOLOGY

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• Thesis Option

The thesis is a major requirement for those in the MA in anthropology thesis track.  The thesis should demonstrate the student's ability to apply knowledge and skills gained from the anthropology department's curriculum.  A desirable goal for an excellent thesis would be a work of sufficient rigor and quality that it could be considered for publication. Original data collection ("fieldwork") is recommended but not required for the thesis.  Analysis of secondary data-whether quantitative, qualitative, visual or other formats--is perfectly acceptable as long as the research is informed by a clearly articulated research question and under-girded by a research proposal.

The traditional thesis is a single document that often incorporates a literature review, definition of a problem, discussion of methods to address the problem, the subsequent research activity and results.  However, the student may design a thesis with different emphases, in consultation with their advisor.  For example the goal may instead be a more compact paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.  Other thesis plans may combine some research activity such as a video production, museum exhibit or an internship, with an accompanying paper.  Students pursuing the thesis option must develop a topic and research proposal that specifies their plans in the semester after their completion of 18 credit hours.

The thesis must be defended before a committee of three faculty, at least two of whom need to be on the Department of Anthropology faculty (which includes senior instructors and research faculty).  The structure of the thesis is largely determined by the  University of Colorado Denver Graduate School Rules ; i.e., a thesis must conform to the rules.

• For the thesis, students must prepare a full research proposal which must be approved by their thesis chair before beginning their research. This proposal must be completed by the semester after the student has completed 18 credit hours. Sections of the proposal should include, at a minimum:
• Introduction and statement of the problem: Should include a one sentence statement of the problem on the first page, and a discussion of its significance (i.e., why is it important that this topic be researched).
• Literature review covering theoretical and topical material.
• Research design and methods including a data analysis plan.

Note:   Wenner-Gren and National Science Foundation both provide good models and templates for the research proposal. Those in the medical anthropology track might want to consider following the NIH model, depending the nature of their research questions and career goals.

• All students proposing to work with humans or data on modern humans must apply for and receive approval from the  Human Subjects Research Committee  before they begin their research. Note: most of the material for the application will be drawn from the research proposal.
• The draft thesis must be reviewed and approved as "defensible" by the student’s thesis committee faculty chair before a thesis defense date can be set. Defensible means the chair has reviewed the draft and suggested changes have been made.
• The draft sent to the student’s committee must be substantively complete: All references must be in the text and properly formatted in a references cited section; there should be no "track changes" comments in the text; the text should be formatted according to Graduate School requirements.
• Given the complexity of faculty and student schedules, consultation on a defense date should be done as far in advance as possible.
• There must be a minimum of three weeks between the agreed-upon date for the defense and distribution of the draft thesis defined as defensible by the student’s chair. If you would like feedback from your committee members before the defense, you should plan to distribute the thesis at least 4 weeks before the defense date.

Note:  If you intend to graduate the same semester you defend your thesis, you must schedule, successfully defend, and complete all recommended changes in accordance with UC Denver Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines  . This effectively translates to having the thesis completed and “defensible” before the middle of the semester.

Your Thesis Committee

The committee generally consists of your major advisor and two other faculty members with whom you have worked during the course of your program. You may choose committee members from outside the department, particularly if they are experts in an area that you explore in the thesis. However, at least two of your committee members must be from the anthropology department. And, all committee members must belong to the Graduate Faculty.  See the rules of the Graduate School .

Thesis Preparation

Click here to obtain a copy of Directions for Preparing Masters and Doctoral Theses .

The Process of Submitting a Thesis

In the semester in which a student intends to submit the thesis for examination, he/she must first submit an  Application for Admission to Candidacy . This initiates a process of determining if the student has met all of the other requirements for the degree, and is eligible to submit a thesis. The application for candidacy form should be completed in consultation with your major advisor, and the graduate director. A  Diploma Card  is submitted at the same time, to initiate the process of preparing final records for graduation.

The completed thesis itself is then submitted for a format review. This review ensures that the material is presented in a readable format that is consistent with the standards of the university. The student then submits a  Request for Examination,  which publicly announces the exam or defense for all interested parties.

At the exam or defense, the student may be asked to revise or add to the thesis before it is approved. The revised thesis is then submitted to the examination committee for final approval, and then copies are handed in to the Graduate School. These copies are permanently kept in the library as a resource for other scholars in the field.

Thesis Submission

Questions concerning matters not discussed in this document must be directed to the thesis committee chairperson. Theses must be reviewed by the Graduate School for format review before the final examination or defense. Once the thesis is signed by the appropriate faculty committee, submit three reproduced or original copies of the thesis, two on CU bond and one on regular paper. The University keeps all three of these copies. You may also order additional copies at this time. The binding fee is due and payable when the thesis is submitted to the Graduate School. Since fees are subject to change, contact the Graduate School for current fees.

The Thesis Examination

The exam consists of a public presentation and defense of the work. The tradition calls for the following steps to be completed:

• Your thesis committee greets you, and then sends you out of the room while the chair of your committee discusses the thesis, asks if there are any particular concerns, and establishes the particular procedure for the conduct of the examination.
• After you are invited to reenter the examination room, the chair will invite you to provide a formal presentation of your research, which should generally not exceed 30 minutes in length.
• After your presentation, the committee will ask you questions about the thesis, work related to it, and perhaps general questions about theory, method, and practical implications of the research.
• When questioning is completed, you will be asked to leave the room again so that your committee may discuss the defense, and decide on whether to give you a pass or fail.
• A "pass" may take many forms, including a request for revision that must be approved by the full committee, or simply a request that revisions be reviewed by the chair.

Registration Issues

Students must be registered during the semester of their final examination/ defense. Students who choose to perform these examinations or defend their thesis on a date that falls between semesters (between Fall and Spring; Spring and Summer, or between Summer and Fall), must register for the semester immediately after their exam/defense.

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The fieldwork proposal distills your research training to date and is at the core of your own plans. It sets out the problem you intend to investigate and how you propose to go about it. Your description of the research problem should include a discussion of relevant literature in the field, and explain why your own research will be a contribution to the discipline. You should then explain why it makes sense to address your research questions through fieldwork in the specific place(s) in which you plan to work.

After submitting your fieldwork proposal and accompanying risk assessment form, you will attend a fieldwork clearance interview with the PhD Committee.

On this page:

Fieldwork proposal

Research ethics and integrity approval


Risk assessment


Timetable 


Budget and checklist


Bibliography 


Submission arrangements

Registration

Fieldwork proposal .

The fieldwork proposal enables the Department to assess your progress in the acquisition of generic research skills, and to satisfy itself that you are adequately prepared for the research you plan to undertake.

The proposal should be a single continuous and complete prose document of up to 7,000 words. This word count includes footnotes but does not include the bibliography. Do not attach separate documents to the proposal. It should contain the following components:

• A review of the literature, both theoretical and ethnographic, with discussion of selected themes/ issues in the ethnography, and of relevant aspects of the history, economy, and languages of the region/ field where the study will be conducted
• An outline of the questions to be addressed and the expected contribution of the study to anthropological understanding
• A methodological discussion, in which theoretical questions and general issues are translated into researchable empirical questions and the methods to be employed are justified and described
• A discussion of the practical, political, and ethical issues affecting conduct of the research
• A detailed timetable for the research
• A detailed estimated budget

Bibliography

The fieldwork proposal should also include:

• Evidence of any local permissions/ visas required for fieldwork
• Contact address/ telephone/ email for the period before you leave; and/or in the field, as known

Your fieldwork proposal should address, briefly or in detail as appropriate, all of the following five issues:

• History: Consider the sources and historiographical issues relating to the area, people and/or institutions you intend to work on. How much is known of the history? How much is contested, by whom, and in what ways?
• Language: Specify the languages with which you will have to work. Are different languages used by different people or for different purposes? How and why might an attention to language be relevant to your research? How will you negotiate the use of different languages in your research?
• Global relations: Set out how you would locate the people or problem you are working on in terms of global political economy, trans-national institutions, national and regional governments, etc. What other large-scale frameworks are relevant, eg cultural areas, traditions, movements, processes, or trends?
• Theory: Discuss the relations between the theory/theories you wish to work with and concrete research topics you will have to address in fieldwork or archival research.
• Methods, techniques and ethics: Discuss the principle methods and techniques you expect to use in your research, together with practical and ethical issues relating to these.

The proposal should not contain substantial ‘recycled’ portions of your RTPs. 

For those doing the MRes prior to the PhD, it is assumed that extended attention will be paid to issues germane to your proposal (in your dissertation), and that topics similar to those specified for the RTPs will have been considered.

A number of sample fieldwork proposals produced by previous PhD and MRes students are available for reference on your Moodle Course. It is important to read these with care for illustrations of effectively drafted research statements, budgets and other key elements of the proposal. Every proposal will be different, of course, but careful drafting in close consultation with your supervisor is essential for all students.

Research ethics and integrity approval

In terms of formal approval procedures, the PhD Committee, consisting of three or four UTOs in the Department, acts as Ethics Committee for doctoral students, and ethical clearance is an intrinsic part of the Fieldwork Clearance procedure all PhD students must clear before they begin fieldwork.

The University of Cambridge Research Integrity website provides extensive ethics and integrity guidelines to support staff and students. The Association of Social Anthropologists also provides extensive ASA ethics guidelines . Please consult these carefully in advance of applying for research clearance from the Department. Also see ESRC framework for research ethics and AAA ethical guidelines .  As the statement from the ASA Chair usefully points out, the guidelines are not intended to provide ready-made answers or to absolve researchers from ethical responsibilities, but should be a starting point for a concrete reflection on the specific ethical issues which may have to be borne in mind in the case of your specific research:  

“Codes of practice and guidelines are of necessity succinct documents, couched in abstract and general terms. They serve as a baseline for starting to think about ethical issues, but cannot of their nature encompass the complexities of concrete situations and the dilemmas of choice and positioning that anthropologists routinely face as they navigate through a variety of intersecting fields of power and responsibility and start to consider how their own work both reflects and affects power relations. If ethics is seen simply as a question of avoiding a lawsuit and our codes are simply a list of restrictions on conduct designed to protect us from interference, our ethical purpose will simply be a matter of self-serving professional interest.” (Statement from the Chair, ASA) 

Researchers should also be aware of data protection issues that arise as a result of conducting research. In particular, you should keep in mind that when using cloud-based storage, or programmes such as Evernote, data will be crossing international borders even if your research does not. This means you should be aware of any issues raised concerning not only the security of your own research data, but also the legal issues surrounding data protection of all personal data. Further information on data protection can be found at the following places: The University of Cambridge Staff and Student Information Research data Q&A from Jisc Legal SOAS information on personal data in research which covers some issues of particular interest to anthropologists in more depth.

If, having read these guidelines, you have any questions or would like any advice relating to research ethics, please consult the Department’s research ethics officer. 

Risk assessment

Students should research the area(s) they are going to and complete a risk assessment form, spelling out all anticipated risks to health and safety. Specify what steps have been agreed between you and your supervisor for minimising risk and dealing with contingencies. Seek advice, where appropriate, from bodies such as the Occupational Health Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The completed Fieldwork Risk Assessment and Ethical Statement Form should be submitted separately from the fieldwork proposal. When submitting electronic copies to Moodle, please upload the Risk Assessment form as a separate document. A High Risk Areas Additional Section form should completed by those traveling to high risk areas.  Blank forms can be found on your Moodle Course. 

Indicate, month by month, when you anticipate undertaking the main tasks described in your proposal. The timetable may be subject to revision, of course, during fieldwork, as agreed with your supervisor, but this is a first step to imagining the concrete situation. 

Your budget, as complete and detailed as possible, should be in clear tabular form. You will need a budget to apply for funding and the Department can only support applications that are accompanied by a credible budget. The Department also needs to be kept informed of the sources of fieldwork funding you obtain.

Circumstances (and exchange rates) change and some expenses are unpredictable. The more detailed and accurate your budget, the easier it will be to make a specific case for additional funds if you find you incur unexpected expenses in the field.

Ideally, your budget should include both a detailed classified list of anticipated expenditure and a month-by-month time-chart showing what you expect to spend when. For some items, you will have a fairly accurate idea of what the cost will be. Others will necessarily be estimates. Indicate clearly which is which and, where appropriate, what the information about costing is based on. If you can, it is a good idea to list items in the first instance in the currency in which you expect the money to be spent, and then to convert these figures to pounds sterling at the current exchange rate. This may be difficult but it lends credibility to your figures and helps strengthen your case if exchange rates move against you. 

Budget checklist

Note: not all funding bodies will support all kinds of expenses. If you apply for funds for any purpose that is explicitly excluded by the funding body this may prejudice your chances of obtaining any funding at all.

• International flight

• Travel to/ from airport

• Internal travel (plane, train, bus, car etc) – itemise/ justify in relation to time schedule

• Local transport (specify as appropriate per diem cost/ monthly rental/ cost of purchase/ resale)

• Luggage costs
• Vaccinations


Living costs


• Accommodation in major centres

• Accommodation in fieldwork site(s) (per calendar month)
• Subsistence (per diem)

• Consider also ‘start-up costs’, the cost of setting up a household, for each major field location (lodging for the first few days, agent’s fees, non-refundable deposits, extra supplies, etc)

Research costs


• Research assistance (justify)

• Language tuition in field

• Communications (post, email access, etc – justify)

• Books, maps, etc (justify)

• Photocopying (justify)
• Stationery

• Audio-visual equipment (itemise and justify)

• Other research equipment (itemise and justify)

• Consumables (film and processing, tape, batteries etc (itemise and justify)

• Specialist clothing (itemise and justify)

Other costs


• Itemise and justify 

Income (funding)

Set against expenses, you should give details of projected income: grants obtained and grants applied for to show how you propose to fund the fieldwork. See the Funding Fieldwork page for more information. 

Your fieldwork proposal must include references giving details of all works referred to. It is also good practice to include a working bibliography covering all the important published work in your field, with notes on content, interest and importance. Your supplementary annotated bibliography should distinguish between works you have/ have not yet read and should indicate briefly the ways in which the works listed relate to your research.

All first-year PhD students are admitted on a probationary basis. Successful completion of your fieldwork proposal and clearance to proceed to fieldwork from the PhD Committee are necessary for the Degree Committee to consider recommending to the Board that you be registered for the PhD degree. Alternatively, students are sometimes registered for the MLitt degree, the requirements for which are less exacting than those for the PhD. In either event the date of registration will be backdated to the date on which you started your pre-fieldwork training. You cannot initiate the registration procedure yourself.  

Course Resources

For additional teaching materials and assignment upload please see the MRes/PhD1 Moodle Course .

Please note teaching staff and students enrolled on the PhD First Year will automatically be enrolled on the MRes/PhD1 Moodle course and you will find a link to the course in the ‘My Home’ section of Moodle.

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Sample Thesis Proposal

Research proposal: visual determination of sex from the human scapula, introduction.

The goal of this project is to test a method for visual determination of sex from the human scapula discovered by Skelton (1978). A large sample of scapulas of known sex will be scored using the Skelton method and the accuracy of the method will be evaluated. The working hypothesis is that the Skelton method is able to identify the correct sex of scapulas with a rate of success that is significantly higher than chance alone. This hypothesis may be accepted if we can reject the null hypothesis that accuracy of the Skelton method is equal to the accuracy expected by chance alone.

The determination of sex from the skeleton is an important concern for osteologists and forensic anthropologists who base their analyses on data obtained from examination of skeletal material. The pelvis is thought to be the best part of the skeleton from which to determine sex, and the skull the second best (Bass, 1971), but in many cases the skull and/or the pelvis are missing from a skeleton and the ability to determine sex from an alternative anatomical region would be useful. The ability to determine sex from the scapula may also be useful in situations where the sex determined from the pelvis or skull is uncertain. In 1978 I undertook a study of metrical and visual methods for sex determination of the scapula (Skelton, 1978). I am, therefore, familiar with the existing methods of sex determination for this bone and with the bone's anatomy. During the 1978 study I proposed a set of visual criteria which seemed to be useful for determining sex, and subsequent informal observations have convinced me that this method is worth pursuing further. I have an earned doctorate in physical anthropology and have worked as a staff osteologist or consulting osteologist on several archaeological projects during the past twelve years.

Materials and Methods

I plan to test the Skelton method for visual determination of sex from the scapula using a sample of at least 50 male and 50 female scapulas. A suitable skeletal collection is housed at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Permission to use the skeletal collection will have to be obtained from Frank Norrick, Curator of the museum. The following information will be recorded for each scapula:

• Specimen identification number.
• Sex as determined from the pelvis using the method of Phenice (1969).
• The angle that the axis of scapular breadth makes with the axis of maximum scapular length. This angle should approach 90 degrees in females, but be closer to 60 degrees in males. [Note: I should have included a diagram or illustration of this and the following characteristics. I didn't, in order to save space. Do include illustrations in your proposal].
• Sub-glenoid concavity. The axillary border of the scapula should be concave in females, but straight in males.
• Relationship between the tip of the coracoid process and the superior angle. When the scapula is placed in anatomical position the tip of the coracoid process should be inferior to the superior angle in females, but superior to the superior angle in males.
• Shape of the glenoid fossa in cross section. The glenoid fossa should be deep when viewed in cross section in females, but shallow in males.

The condition of the scapula for characteristics 3 through 6 above will be recorded as hypermasculine (2), masculine (1), ambiguous (0), feminine (-1), and hyperfeminine (-2). A contingency table will then be constructed for each characteristic that compares sex and score for that characteristic. These contingency tables will have the form shown in figure 1. For each characteristic, a chi-square test will reveal whether there is a non-random distribution of scores by sex. An overall score will be obtained for each specimen by adding the scores for each of the 4 characteristics that are shown to have a non-random distribution by sex from the chi-square test. If the overall score is greater than zero, then the specimen will be diagnosed as male. If the overall score is less than zero, then the specimen will be diagnosed as female. These diagnoses will be compared to the known sex of the specimen and each diagnosis will be recorded as correct or incorrect. The null hypothesis that the frequency of correct diagnoses is equal to 50% will be tested.

Data collection should take one week at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA.

Implications of this Research

If the Skelton method for visual sex determination from the scapula is more accurate than expected by chance, then this method would be a useful addition to list of sex determination methods available to an osteologist. If the method is no more accurate than chance, then the human scapula can be considered uninformative for sex using visual methods.

References Cited

Bass, William M., 1971. Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual of the Human Skeleton. Missouri Archaeological Society, Columbia, MO.

Skelton, Randall R., 1978. Sexing the scapula: Various methods. Paper prepared in satisfaction of the "Substantive Research Paper Requirement" for the M.A. degree in Anthropology, University of California, Davis.

Phenice, T. W., 1969. A newly developed visual method of sexing the Os Pubis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 30: 297-302.

Other References

Bainbridge, Douglass. and Santiago Genoves Tarazaga, 1956. A study of sex differences in the scapula. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 86:109-134. Hrdlicka, Ales, 1942a, The scapula: Visual observations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 29:73-94.

Hrdlicka, Ales, 1942b, The adult scapula: Additional observations and measurements. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 29:262-415.

Stewart, T. D., 1954. Sex determination of the skeleton by guess and by measurement. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 12:385-392.

• Equipment : Digital Calipers $142.95
• Travel : Air fare: Missoula to San Francisco $378.32
• Bus fare : Daily, 5 days (@$2/day) $10.00
• Lodging : 5 days at Motel 6 Berkeley (@32.95/day + 8.25% tax) $164.75
• Food : 5 days at $16 per diem $80.00

Total : $776.02

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The Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience was recently named a University Research Center. Illustration by Ana Kova.

Lehigh's First University Research Center to Focus on Catastrophe Modeling

The first of three new University Research Centers, The Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience aims to explore how hurricanes, pandemics and other large-scale events impact communities.

Christina Tatu

• University Research Center
• Interdisciplinary Research

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic flooding in Louisiana, killing more than 1,800 people and leading to $108 billion in property damage, including the destruction of fiber optic cables and microwave antennas essential for transmitting and receiving signals for cellular, radio and television broadcasts.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast, killing more than 70 people and damaging more than 850 power transmission structures and more than 745 miles of transmission and distribution conductors. More than 200,000 people, including many in the Houston area, were without power for days.

Authorities rescue those stranded during Hurricane Katrina which made landfall as a category four hurricane along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana in 2005.

In 2018, a massive wildfire in Northern California, ignited by a fault in a power line and fueled by strong winds, burned through more than 153,000 acres, destroyed 18,804 buildings and killed 85 people. The Camp Fire was California’s deadliest wildfire to date.

What these disasters have in common is that they force a closer examination of the resilience of the country’s infrastructure and utility systems. As such disasters become more frequent, they raise questions about what can be done to ensure communities can withstand catastrophes and quickly rebuild.

Catastrophe modeling and resilience, the focus of Lehigh’s first University Research Center—announced earlier this year as part of Lehigh’s strategic plan, Inspiring the Future Makers —attempts to assess the risk of these kinds of events and plan for them.

The Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience , led by Paolo Bocchini , professor of civil and environmental engineering, brings together a team of faculty from across disciplines, leveraging a wealth of experience and expertise in their respective fields who attempt to predict catastrophes and assess their associated risks.

Lehigh has had teams of researchers studying disaster resilience for years. Over time, they have developed relationships with collaborators in government, industry and academia and secured funding for a variety of projects.

“We at Lehigh created an area of strength in community and infrastructure resilience,” Bocchini said. “We started about 15 years ago to work on this. We have reached critical mass, and I think we’ve established ourselves as relevant players in the field.”

Lehigh’s leaders hope the University Research Center designation and investment will help Bocchini and his team secure more research funding to expand efforts and crystallize Lehigh’s status as a leader in the field of catastrophe modeling and resilience.

“The goal of these centers is to achieve national and international prominence in a specific area of work so that when people who are interested in a particular topic ask, ‘Where is the best or most interesting research being done on the issue,’ Lehigh comes to mind as a great place where that work is being done,” said Dominic Packer, associate vice provost for research.

The goal of these centers is to achieve national and international prominence in a specific area of work so that when people [...]ask, 'Where is the best or most interesting research being done on the issue,' Lehigh comes to mind as a great place where that work is being done.

Dominic Packer, Associate Vice Provost for Reserach

The Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience will also help advance Lehigh’s goal of doubling its research over the next 10 years.

Being named a University Research Center means that the Lehigh faculty involved will invest at least 50% of their research efforts there, Packer said. For some faculty, all of their research could revolve around the center. The backing also will make Lehigh’s researchers more competitive with other institutions vying for large-scale funding. Such grants often require interdisciplinarity with a strong sense of institutional commitment, Packer said.

Several projects have already been carried out or are underway .

Research led by Bocchini explores wildfire risk assessment . Under strong wind and dry weather, California power companies can enact public safety power shutoffs, but the shutoffs cause blackouts affecting millions of people. Bocchini’s team has explored ignition probability, which is increased when conductor cables oscillate in such a way that they encroach on surrounding vegetation. Bocchini’s research provided a methodology for predicting at what point during a high wind storm powerline ignition becomes likely.

In May 2014, San Diego County was hit with unprecedented wildfires fueled by drought.

Ethan Yang , associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is collaborating with Florida Atlantic University, and the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, both in Japan, to develop an inclusive human-centered methodology comparing similarities and differences in how the United States and Japan deal with disasters and mitigate them. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project will mainly look at flooding, which often causes the most extensive damage to communities, Yang said.

David Casagrande , an anthropology professor, is studying U.S. Census data from 2000 and 2010 to examine how neighborhoods in New Orleans changed as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The data helps illustrate “social vulnerability,” that is, which members of a population may be more vulnerable and have less resilience to recover after a disaster, he said. That could be influenced by factors such as race, age, income and whether the person is a homeowner or renter.

“You can’t just treat the population as homogenous if you really want to understand,” said Casagrande, who is assisted by a graduate researcher. “You have pockets of poverty, and other issues that are going to affect a community’s ability to recover after a disaster.”

The catastrophe modeling team was a clear frontrunner among proposals for the designation as a University Research Center because, in addition to their exciting work, they were among the most established teams to submit a proposal, Packer said.

“Paolo is very impressive as a leader and he has a vision, and he and his team have been working toward this for quite a few years now,” he said. “This is not something that happened overnight. They’ve really been working toward creating a center-like structure.”

What is Catastrophe Modeling?

Catastrophe Modeling, or CatModeling, attempts to predict the likelihood of potentially catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, pandemics, financial crises, as well as political unrest and the associated risks that include financial losses, damage to buildings and other infrastructure.

CatModeling is particularly important for insurance companies who often cover the cost of disasters. The speed with which insurers can make payments can impact the long-term recovery of a region. Despite the importance of CatModeling, the field has not previously been treated as a traditional discipline explored systematically in academia.

While the private sector has moved forward research in CatModeling, it can benefit from stronger collaborations with the fundamental and interdisciplinary research done in academia, Bocchini says. The Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience envisions a thriving University Research Center that expands the role of academia in CatModeling and interacts with major stakeholders in industry, government and researchers at other universities to address the most relevant problems in the field.

Some of these problems are related to the influence of climate change on catmodels, rapid response and recovery after disasters, as well as climate, environmental and social justice applied to disaster resilience.

Resilience refers to a community’s ability to withstand and recover from a disaster. The role insurance companies play in resilience is critical, Bocchini said.

“Insurance companies are really fueling the recovery effort,” he said. “Making sure that they are still in the black after these events, and they can provide resources, is important. In the past, we had examples where some insurance companies went bankrupt before catastrophe modeling became a science.”

Center researchers have decided to continue their efforts from a public sector perspective, but also add new focus on the private sector, specifically the insurance industry, he said.

Bocchini’s background is in probabilistic modeling applied to civil engineering. Since his early research years, Bocchini has applied probabilistic modeling to natural disasters.

“I saw students get immediately excited when I pitched this type of application, because we are dealing with the biggest threats to our society,” Bocchini said. He and his colleagues realized such models could be applied to other events as well. They began trying to predict epidemics before the COVID pandemic hit.

A worker sanitizes a theater in New Delhi, India, on Oct. 14, 2020.

I saw students get immediately excited when I pitched this type of application, because we are dealing with the biggest threats to our society.

Paolo Bocchini, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

“These are measures of threats our society faces, and in some cases they are existential threats,” Bocchini said. “Trying to do something about it, for me as an engineer, is very fascinating. I’m not trying to cure diseases, but I think this is the best approximation of trying to help our society defend against its threats.”

An Interdisciplinary Team

The catastrophe modeling group at Lehigh have also catalyzed a broader catastrophe modeling coordination network, for which Lehigh’s University Research Center will serve as hub. It includes founding members from Rice University in Houston, Stanford University in Palo Alto and Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. There are additional members from Washington State, Missouri University of Science and Technology and Columbia University in New York.

Lehigh currently has eight core faculty members involved in the center from across various disciplines, including engineering, mathematics, science and social sciences. They include Bocchini, Casagrande and Yang, as well as:

– Daniel Conus , associate professor and associate chair of the Department of Mathematics – Brian Davison , professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering – Benjamin Felzer , associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences – Thomas McAndrew , assistant professor with the College of Health – Maryam Rahnemoonfar , an associate professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bocchini hopes to at least double the number of center-affiliated researchers in the next few years. The center is also in the process of hiring an industry liaison to work with those in the insurance sector. A master’s degree program in catastrophe modeling and resilience has been introduced along with a certificate program. The first students in those programs are starting in the Fall 2024 semester.

“This problem requires multiple kinds of expertise to answer it well,” said Davison, who is also one of the founding members of the center.

“The insurance industry and finance industry have their areas of expertise, but they might not know how to plan for and repair certain kinds of infrastructure,” Davison said. “I would argue it’s necessary for catastrophe modeling to be interdisciplinary because we’re going to miss something pretty significant if we are not considering the human aspects.”

[...] It's necessary for catastrophic modeling to be interdisciplinary because otherwise we're going to miss something pretty significant if we are not considering the human aspects.

Brian Davison, Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Davison and his colleagues at the center say they are in a unique position to bring government and private industry together.

Yang said government agencies have their attention divided by issues such as inflation and housing prices, while the insurance companies are for-profit corporations and need to worry about their finances and their competitive edge. Those in academia don’t have such constraints.“We are in a good spot and can serve as a neutral venue that brings everyone together,” he said.

Lehigh Launches its University Research Centers

The development of University Research Centers marks an important milestone in Lehigh’s strategic plan to invest in interdisciplinary research. University leaders have been seeking and developing ideas for the formation of research centers. The goal is to create multiple centers of national and international prominence in the next five to 10 years.

The process began with the strategic planning effort during fall 2022 when the “Research for Impact” working group solicited creative ideas from across campus, which helped inform and create the notion of interdisciplinary research centers in three areas: assessing and improving health by working outside of healthcare settings; interdisciplinary research and creative work to understand conflict and change; innovation for sustainable and resilient infrastructure and communities.

In August 2023, university leaders solicited proposals for University Research Centers. They received 17 letters of intent and 12 white papers, each of which presented ideas with potential for further development.

Each proposal was reviewed by experts, including Lehigh faculty, staff, deans, content experts from academia and industry, and experts in federal research priorities. Lehigh hopes to designate more University Research Centers in the near future, including in the areas of assessing and improving health by working outside of healthcare settings, and interdisciplinary research and creative work to understand conflict and change.

“We identified a set of themes, areas where it seems like we have existing strengths and it would be good to grow,” Packer said.

A location for the Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience is still being determined, though Packer believes it will most likely be on the Mountaintop Campus.

“I think our perspective is that this is a really important and exciting area of research that is only going to grow in importance,” Packer said.

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Nursing Home Industry May Obscure Some of its Profits, Lehigh Researcher Finds

Andrew Olenski, assistant professor of economics, publishes finding in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.

Research Promotes Equitable Reclassification for Multilingual Learners with Disabilities

Sara Kangas, associate professor of special education, presents policy brief to special education state agency leaders from across the U.S.

Lehigh’s Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience Receives NSF Planning Grant to Pursue Industry-University Cooperative Research Center

Grant will strengthen Lehigh’s Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience as a nationally recognized research center.

Sponsored Programs Proposal Deadline and Fiscal Year End Reminders

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