Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship

A view from above the town of Leymebamba, Peru, where I'll be based for my upcoming fieldwork.

I’m so excited to announce that I’ve been offered a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship! These fellowships, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, are designed to support projects which “deepen research knowledge on and help the nation develop capability in areas of the world not generally included in U.S. curricula.” Typically 80-100 of these fellowships are awarded in any given year (across all disciplines!), and I’m incredibly honored to be one of them in 2021.

The fellowship will support my travel and living expenses during my upcoming major dissertation field season—fingers crossed for March through December 2021. Nine and a half months will be by far the longest I’ve spent outside of the U.S. consecutively; I’m a little nervous, and very excited!

The funded project is titled “Paving the Way for Peruvian Agriculture: Ten Thousand Years of Human–Environment Interactions in Chachapoyas, Peru.” I’ll be doing excavation and laboratory analysis to evaluate how human-environment interactions in Chachapoyas, Peru influenced and reflected important cultural developments around South America, including the initial colonization, responses to Middle Holocene climate change, and the dispersal of domesticated plants out of the Amazon rainforest.

The Fulbright-Hays fellowship also includes some funding for research expenses, but to get the most of out the project I’m also getting ready to submit a proposal to the National Science Foundation, which could provide critical additional support for more local hires, more radiocarbon dates, and other important work.

In the meantime, be on the lookout for an upcoming feature of my work on the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology’s Instagram series “Catching Up in the Coffee Range," @umichanthroarch.
 
What I’m reading: Pearce, A. J., Beresford-Jones, D. G., & Heggarty, P. (2020). Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide: A cross-disciplinary exploration. UCL Press.

---