Michael Berthaume

Anthroengineer

The department gave me some fantastic opportunities to work with some of the best minds, work with physical material (skeletons, moulds, replicas) and learn how to handle it in both a scientific and ethical manner. 

I completed a minor (2006-2010) and MA (2011-2014) in anthropology at UMass, and loved my time there. The department was friendly, supportive, and intellectually challenging. The department gave me some fantastic opportunities to work with some of the best minds, work with physical material (skeletons, moulds, replicas) and learn how to handle it in both a scientific and ethical manner, and provided me with the opportunity to learn how to teach and, importantly, ask a research question. I made some lifelong friends during my time there and think back on my time fondly. 

Engineering is a very technical field, which focuses heavily on methodology. Anthropology, on the other hand, focuses on research questions. Learning the distinctions between these scientific areas and how to operate effectively in both of them has helped my career immensely. While most of the anthropological work I have done was within biological anthropology, being in a four-field programme taught me how work at the interface of anthropological disciplines and how to effectively combine them. Over the last 5 or 6 years, I have been doing this in my prosthetic work, where I have taken and analyzed anthropometric data and conducted ethnography in order to better understand prosthetic needs, and how to co-create sustainable, culturally relevant solutions with local communities. I would not have been able to do this if I had not come out of a four-field programme like the one at UMass, Amherst. 

[Interview edited on 2025]