Deborah Hanan’s master’s thesis Unmasking the Invisible: The Construction of Gender Variant Characters in Late 20th Century American and British Cinema (1992-2002), was selected as the single CSULA entry for the 2004-2005 Western Association of Graduate Schools Most Distinguished Master's Thesis Award. Hanan’s degree is in American Cultural Studies, an interdisciplinary program that united the approaches and disciplines of Communication Studies, Cultural Anthro-pology, and History.

Lara McCormick has been accepted into the Ph.D. program in physical anthropology at The Ohio State University and will start in the fall. She will be teaching a section of Introduction to Physical Anthropology.

Diana Dupuis and Lara McCormick were classroom and excavation instructors at the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner skeletal excavation workshop. The chief medical examiner presented both with certificates of appreciation for their efforts. A Los Angeles Times story on the workshop includes a picture of McCormick.

Lara McCormick has a ten week internship this summer at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. The internship is part of her Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Fellowship and will pay her $5,200 for the ten weeks.

Elizabeth Stoffers and Kelly Houck were inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi honor society.

Clarus Backes, a senior, won the Best Student Paper Award at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for California Archaeology. His presentation, More Than Meets the Eye: Fluorescence Photography for Enhanced Analysis of Pictographs won over graduate students from major research institutions.

The Geography of Religions and Belief Systems committee has selected Shankari Patel’s Pre-Columbian Pilgrimage at Cozumel Island as the winner of the 2004 David Sopher Award for the best paper presented at the Centennial Meeting of the Association of American Geographers. Patel competed against Ph.D. candidates and untenured faculty.

Stephanie DuPont was one of two students to win a Graduate Alumni Scholarship for 2003-2004.

Clarus Backes, Jr., Diana Dupuis, Cesar Espinosa, Lara McCormick, and Victoria Stosal participated in the 12th Annual CSULA Symposium for Student Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity on February 27th. took second place in the under-graduate Behavioral and Social Sciences category and McCormick took second in the graduate category. Backes was also one of ten students selected to represent CSULA in the system wide competition.Backes

The Anthropology Department proudly recognizes its majors named to the Dean’s List. Students must have at least a 3.5 GPA and be among the top 5% of students in the college while carrying at least 12 units.

Name Quarter

Clarus J. Backes, Jr. Fall, Winter

Cielo Gutierrez Botello Fall

George Constanz Fall, Spring, Summer

Cesar Espinosa Fall, Winter

Eugenia Kalandjian Fall, Summer

Wade Lee Kidner Fall

Yoshie Komoto Fall

Christine Avalon Lewis Fall, Summer

Elise McCollum Fall

Emilio E. Merino Fall, Spring

Jaime Monzon Fall

Maria Ann Neal Fall, Winter

Mayaluna Ramos Fall, Summer

Andrea Soh Fall

Congratulations to Clarus Backes, Jr., Cesar Espinosa, Lara McCormick, Michael Mirro, Maria Neal and Sylvere Valentin for being among the 35 Cal State, L.A. students named to the Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges for 2003 – 2004.

Congratulations to Cesar Espinosa on being accepted into the Ph.D. program at Southern Illinois University with a full-ride scholarship.

Victoria Stosel presented a paper, Observations on the Diet of the Nicoleño, at the Sixth Channel Islands Symposium held December 1 – 3 at Ventura Beach.

Cesar Espinosa attended the American Anthropological Association meetings in Chicago, Nov. 19-23. Diana Dupuis, Lara McCormick, Stephanie Dupont, Vanessa Ramos, Kent Johnson and Sylvere Valentin attended the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meetings in Dallas last February.

Cesar Espinosa participated in the 2003 Sigma Xi Student Research Conference, November 14-15 at the Hyatt Regency Macy’s Plaza in Los Angeles. The conference drew students from 93 institutions representing 30 states, Puerto Rico and one foreign country. Among the institutions present were such traditional powerhouses as: Cal Tech, Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan and Yale. Espinosa was awarded a White Ribbon for his exhibit, “Ulama and the Ancient Mesoamerican Ballgame.”

Victoria Stosel presented a paper at the Society for California Archeology Southern California Data Sharing entitled Diet Adaptation to a Marine Environment on San Nicholas Island. The conference took place on November 8 at the San Diego Archaeological Center in Escondido.

Congratulations to the Anthropology Club for their wonderful job of organizing and staging the all-day symposium, Explorations of Maya Society Past and Present. Special recognition goes to Charles Cisneros, Juana Becerra, Christine Ching, Sandra Habr, Brian Hogue, Lara McCormick, Emilio Merino, Efrat Sadras.

Two Anthropology students gave papers at the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies Annual Conference held at Whittier College on November 7-8. Graduate student Mike Mirro presented, "Archaeological Investigations at Barton Creek Cave: Maya Ritual Cave Use in Western Belize." Senior Cesar Espinosa organized the session, "An Ethnographic Analysis of Ulama," and presented a paper, "Ideological Continuity and Discontinuity in Ulama."

As a senior last year, Sergio Garza was nominated by the dean for a United States Achievement Academy scholarship. In October Garza, now a graduate student at U.C. Riverside, was notified that he had won