Elena Sesma is documenting community history using cutting-edge research methods. Through techniques like panoramic photography, community-engaged participation, oral history, as well as traditional archaeology, Sesma, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology, is researching the history and changing landscape in the communities at the former Millars Plantation in the Bahamas.
Brittni Howard, an anthropology doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently returned from a Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowship to Ghana that supported her research on how the social networks and relationships of children and youth influence the decisions they make in working, playing, and learning. Howard was in the Greater-Accra region of Ghana with her daughter from February to September 2018. In addition, Howard explained that she takes students from the U.S. every June and July for a six-week study and service program, 
While forced family separations by government authorities continue to make headlines and stir debate in the United States, migrant Chinese factory workers in the Italian fast fashion industrial province of Prato have been making the choice to willfully send their newborn children back to China to live with relatives while they remain in Italy. Professor Elizabeth Krause and her colleague Massimo Bressan examine the reasons driving the decision parents are making to separate their families, and how capitalism and the “Made in Italy” label serve as both cause and effect of this choice.
Kerry Lynch, an archaeologist with University of Massachusetts Archaeological Services, is playing a critical role in helping solve a 240-year-old maritime mystery with the possible discovery of the HMS Endeavour, the ship that Lt. James Cook captained on the first voyage by British explorers to Australia.
A team of researchers including Laurie Godfrey, Emeritus Professor, and Ventura Pérez, Associate Professor, analyzed the bones of what was once the world’s largest bird and revealed that humans arrived on the tropical island of Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Associate Professors Sonya Atalay and Whitney Battle-Baptiste recently contributed to a collection of reflections in American Anthropologist on the topic of "Archaeology as Bearing Witness." Over a half-dozen anthropology faculty from institutions in the US and Europe contributed to the publication.