Understanding humans and the human condition through the past, present and future. This is just a small part of what anthropologists at UW are doing for Wyoming, North America and humankind. With its unique archaeological heritage in the area surrounding campus in Laramie, our graduate anthropology programs are rich with opportunities for our graduate students.
Tuition and Fees
Small and intimate, our master’s in anthropology program offers ample opportunities for faculty-student research collaboration. This graduate degree program emphasizes a four-field approach in the tradition of American anthropology. Typically completed in two years, our master’s program in anthropology grants at least a semester of funding to all of our M.A. students, and we try to fund as many graduate students as we can.
Our doctoral degree program, typically completed in three years, is also small and intimate, which creates a close-knit yet flexible academic environment to pursue your career and research interests. Our strengths lie in hunter-gatherer archaeology, Paleoindian archaeology and archaeology of the Rocky Mountain West and Plains.
We are deeply committed to both our Wyoming-based research and our international programs — and often make strong connections between them.
The anthropology master’s program curriculum at UW includes basic coverage of archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. The anthropology Ph.D. program at UW focuses on hunter-gatherer, Paleoindian and plains archaeology.
These are just some of the classes you might take as a student in UW’s anthropology graduate programs:
View M.A. in anthropology degree program curriculum.
View Ph.D. in anthropology degree program curriculum.
Many of our M.A. graduates go on to careers in anthropology and archaeology. Most commonly, they work in cultural resource management, government or higher education.
90% of our Ph.D. graduates work in anthropology, with the majority of them building successful careers as academic professionals, including tenure-track faculty members and postdoctoral fellows.
Anthropology Careers
UW M.A. and Ph.D. anthropology graduates hold titles such as:
Here are some reasons to consider one of UW’s graduate anthropology programs:
Research Experience
As a graduate student in UW’s anthropology master’s or Ph.D. program, you’ll have access to academic and professional opportunities such as these:
Lab research in all four subfields of anthropology
Field research in Wyoming, Peru, Croatia, Mongolia, Senegal and Alaska
Internships and jobs with state and federal agencies, including the Anthropology Museum,
Archaeological Repository, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, Wyoming
State Archaeologist and the Bureau of Land Management
Graduate Program Funding
In addition to the semester of funding for M.A. students, our graduate anthropology program offers a wide variety of opportunities for all of our graduate students to earn funding for their field and lab research. These include:
Frison Scholarships
Grants from the Jason Reher Memorial Fund and Anne Slater Memorial Fund
Frison Institute awards such as the June Frison Memorial Fund, Collections Grant,
Alpine Archaeology Fund, Patrick Orion Mullen Fund in Archaeological Science, William
and Gloria Tyrell Fund and Rhoda Owen Lewis Fund
World-Class, Innovative Faculty
Constituting a center of multicultural global research in Laramie, Wyoming, anthropology graduate program faculty at UW possess international expertise in areas such as Iceland, Peru, Croatia, Native North America and more. Our strengths are in Paleoindian and hunter-gatherer archaeology, Wyoming’s past and biological anthropology. For example, two faculty members work in Peru on the archaeology and biological anthropology of Andean complex societies. We also have strong ties to archaeologists working in state and federal government, which have led to research and job opportunities for our graduate students.
Facilities & Labs
Even though our graduate anthropology program is small, we have big resources directly on campus in Laramie, Wyoming. UW houses the State Historic Preservation Office, UW Archaeological Repository, George C. Frison Institute, Anthropology Museum, Human Remains Repository, Frison Library, Photogrammetry and Digitization Lab, Zooarchaeology Comparative Collection and GIS Lab. Faculty labs include the Bioarchaeology and Stable Isotope Laboratory (BaSIL), Ethnographic Laboratory, Geoarchaeology Lab, Lithic Analysis Lab, Historical and Andean Archaeology Lab, Zooarchaeology Lab, Paleoindian Research Lab, Forensic Anthropology Lab and Paleoanthropology Lab with a 3-D printer and 3-D scanner.
Heather Rockwell, ’14 University of Wyoming, Ph.D. in Anthropology
Assistant Professor, Salve Regina University
Anthropology Department
12th and Lewis Street
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-5136
Email: anthro@uwyo.edu