Curriculum Vitae

SIBEL B. KUSIMBA

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June 2020

Education

1997    Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1992    M.A. in Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1988    A.B. in Anthropology, Departmental Honors and Cum Laude, Bryn Mawr College

Academic Appointments

2020-               Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

2014-2020      Anthropologist in Residence, American University, Washington, DC

2020               Visiting Research Fellow in the Human Economy Program, University of Pretoria, South Africa

2018                   Visiting Professor of Ethnology, Minzu University of China, Beijing

2007-2014          Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University

2009-2010          Fulbright Professor, Egerton University, Egerton, Kenya

2003-2007          Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University

2001-2003          Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI

Research Interests

Economic change and development; impact of technology on society, culture and environment; money, economics, and value systems; technological change in finance and banking; financial technologies and Fintech in the Global South and the United States; family life, gender, youth and aging; Africa; China

Publications – Books

2021    Kusimba, S. Reimagining Money: Kenya in the Digital Finance Revolution. Stanford University Press.

2003    Kusimba, S. African Foragers: Environment, Technology, Interactions. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.

2003    Kusimba, C. M., and S. Kusimba (Editors). East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders. MASCA, the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Publications – Edited Journal Issue

2020    Economic Anthropology. Special Issue Editor, Volume 7, Issue 2. Theme: Wealth in People.

Publications – Journal Articles

2020    Kusimba, S. Wealth in People: Out of Africa. Economic Anthropology 7(2):1-10.

2018    Kusimba, S. It is Easy for Women to Ask: Gender and Digital Finance in Kenya. Economic Anthropology 5(2):247-260. Special issue: Financialization.

2018    Kusimba, S. Money, Mobile Money, and Ritual in Western Kenya: The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow. African Studies Review 61(2):158-182. Special Issue Theme: Post-Colonial Kenya.

2017    Kusimba, C. M. and S. Kusimba. Preindustrial Water Management in Eastern Africa. Journal of Global Archaeology and Anthropology. 1(2):1-13.

2016    Kusimba, S.B., Y. Yang, and N. Chawla. Hearthholds of Mobile Money in Western Kenya. Economic Anthropology 3:266-279.

2015    Kusimba, S., Y. Yang, and N. Chawla. Family Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya. Information Technology and International Development 11(3):1-21.

2013    Kusimba, C., S. Kusimba, and L. Dussubieux. Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa. African Archaeological Review 30:399-426.

2008    L. Dussubieux, C. M. Kusimba, V. Gogte, S. Kusimba, B. Gratuze, R. Oka. The Trading of Ancient Glass Beads: New Analytical Data from South Asian and East African Soda-Alumina Glass Beads. Archaeometry 50:797-821.

2005    Kusimba, C. M., S. Kusimba, and D. Wright. The Development and Collapse of Precolonial Ethnic Mosaics in Tsavo, Kenya. Journal of African Archaeology 3 (2):135-192.

2005    Kusimba, S. 2005. What is a Hunter-gatherer? Some problems in the archaeology of Eastern and Southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Research 13:337-366.

2004    Kusimba, C. M., and S. Kusimba. Archaeology as Anthropology Today and Tomorrow: Perspectives from Africa. Teaching Anthropology: The Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges Notes, 10:13-17.

2003    Terrell, J. E., J. Hart, S. Kusimba, N. Cellinese, A. Curet, T. Denham, C. Kusimba, Kyle Latinis, Rahul Oka, Joel Palka, M. Pohl, K. Pope, P. Williams, H. Haines, and J. Staller. Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10:323-368.

2002    Kusimba, S. The Early Later Stone Age in East Africa: Excavations and Lithic Assemblages from Lukenya Hill, Kenya. African Archaeological Review 18:77-123.

2000    Kusimba, C. M., and S. Kusimba. Hinterlands and Cities: Archaeological Investigations of Economy and Trade in Tsavo, Southeastern Kenya. Nyame Akuma 54: 97-100.

1999    Kusimba, S. Hunter-gatherer Land Use Patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18:165-200.

1997    Kusimba, S. Later Stone Age Site Use Patterns at Lukenya Hill, Kenya. Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology 13:9-25.

1994    Kusimba, S. Middle and Later Stone Age Lithic Technology and Land Use Patterns in East African Savannas. African Archaeological Review 12:44-70.

Publications – Book Chapters

2018    Kusimba, S., Gabriel Kunyu, and Elizabeth Gross. “Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya.” In Money at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion, and Design, edited by B. Maurer, S. Musaraj, and I. Small. Berghahn Books, London, pp. 179-199.

2018    Kusimba, C. M., Sloan R. Williams, Janet Monge, Mohamed Mchula, Rahul Oka, Gilbert Oteyo, Sibel Kusimba, and Laure Dussubieux. “Mtwapa.” In The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette, Routledge, London, pp 226-230.

2018    Kusimba, C. and Kusimba, S. “Mosaics.” In The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette. Routledge, London, pp. 403-418.

2017    Kusimba, C., R. Oka, V. Gogte, L. Dussubieux, and S. Kusimba. “Predatory Commerce and Economic Disaster: A Cautionary Tale from the Seventeenth-Century Indian Ocean Economy.” In Africa and its Diaspora: History, Identity, and Economy, edited by Samuel Oloruntoba. Panafrican University Press, Austin, Texas, pp. 89-102.

2017    Kusimba, C., and Kusimba, S. “Trade and State Formation on the Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia.” In Feast, Famine, or Fighting: Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity, ed. R. Chacon and R. Mendoza. Springer, New York, pp. 61-90.

2016    Kusimba, S. “An American in Kenya: Experiences at an African University.” In Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture, edited by Philip DeVita. Fourth Edition, pp. 57-66. Waveland Press, Long Grove, IL.

2013    Kusimba, C. M., J. Monge, and S. Kusimba. “The Identity of Early Kenyan Coastal Peoples: A Comparative Analysis of Human Remains from Shanga, Mtwapa and Taita.” In Coastal Identities in East Africa, edited by R. Gearhart. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ. Pp. 1-24.

2013    Kusimba, S. “Hunter-gatherers of Eastern and Southeastern Africa from 20,000 years ago to the present.” In The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology, edited by Paul Lane and Peter Mitchell. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Pp. 310-326.

2009    Kusimba, C.M. and S.B. Kusimba. “Leadership in Middle Range African Societies.” In Evolution of Leadership, edited by J. Kantner, and K. Vaughn. School of Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe. Pp 223-248.

2008    Kusimba, S.B. “East African Foragers.” In The Encyclopedia of Archaeology, edited by Deborah Pearsall. Elsevier Science, Academic Press, New York. Pp. 15-17.

2007    Kusimba, S. , and C. M. Kusimba. “Intensification and Protohistoric Agricultural Practices in East Africa.” In Seeking a Richer Harvest: The Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation, and Change, edited by T. Thurston and C. Fisher. New York: Kluwer/Academic. Pp. 127-143.

2006    Kusimba, C. M., S. Kusimba, and B. Abgaje-Williams. “Precolonial African Cities: Size and Density.” In Urbanism in the Preindustrial World: Cross-Cultural Approaches, edited by G. Storey. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Pp. 145-160.

2005    Kusimba, C. M., and S. Kusimba. “Mosaics and Interactions: East Africa, 2000 BP to the Present.” In African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction, edited by Ann Stahl, pp.392-419. London: Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology, Blackwell Press.

2003    Kusimba, S. , and C. M. Kusimba. “Comparing Prehistoric and Historic Hunter-gatherer Mobility in Southern Kenya.” In Current Research Themes in Later East African Archaeology, edited by C. Kusimba and S. Kusimba, pp.1-16. MASCA, The University of Pennsylvania Press.

2002    Kusimba, S. “History.” In Darwin in Archaeology: A Handbook of Concepts, edited by John Terrell and John Hart, pp. 143-160. Westport, Ct: Bergin and Garvey.

1999    Kusimba, S. , and Fred H. Smith. “Acheulean.” In The Encyclopedia of Prehistory, edited by P. Peregrine and M. Ember, pp. 1-22. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

1995    “Obsidian Source Use at Lukenya Hill, Kenya.” In Aspects of African Archaeology, edited by G. Pwiti and R. Soper, pp. 303-313, Harare, Zimbabwe: University of Harare Press.

Webinars, Podcasts, and Web Videos

2018    Podcast: https://worldpodcasts.com/sibel-kusimba-mobile-money-and-how-it-impacts-peoples-practices-relationships-and-perception-of-money-in-kenya-the-human-show-podcast-20/

2016    Featured Guest on UpFront, the Voice of America broadcast to Africa about Mobile Money in Kenya. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1360738550627552&id=440676892633727

2015    Mobile Money, Philanthropy, and the Social Network Effect: Recent Research from Kenya and Product Innovation from M-Changa. NetHope, February 26. http://solutionscenter.nethope.org/blog/view/a-glimpse-into-future-of-mobile-money-societies-in-the-global-south

2015    Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya. Seven-minute web video produced with videographer Steven McCord with the support of IMTFI, University of California. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sywez6yKEbo

2014    Mobile Economies in Kenya – Webinar Wednesday at the American Anthropological Association, October 15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atbC_eF8jiI

Publications – Research Reports

2019    Sibel Kusimba and Changa Labs, M-Changa, Busara Center for Behavioral Economics. Understanding Digital Fundraising in Kenya: A Case Study with M-Changa. Nairobi, Kenya.

2017    Kusimba, S., G. Kunyu, and N. Musombi. Feeling, Information, Networks, Value. Final Report to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 141 pp.

2016    Kusimba, S. G. Kunyu, and N. Musombi. Dynamic Networks of Mobile Money among Unbanked Women in Western Kenya. Final Report to Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, University of California at Irvine. 12 pp.

2015    Kusimba, S., G. Kunyu, and A. Wanyama. Mobile Money and Coming of Age in Western Kenya. Final Report to Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, University of California at Irvine. 67 pp. http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/files/docs/2015/Final%20Report%20Kusimba.pdf

2013    Kusimba, S., Harpieth Chaggar, Elizabeth Gross, and Gabriel Kunyu. Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya. Working Paper, Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, University of California at Irvine. http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/files/2013-1_kusimba_1.pdf

Publications – Conference Reports

2019    Remittances. In Digital Finance in Africa’s Future: Innovations and Implications. Proceedings of an International Colloquium held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 22—26 October 2018. Organized by the Human Economy Research Programme at the University of Pretoria and the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), in association with Disrupting Africa. Edited by John Sharp, Lena Gronbach and Riaan de Villiers. University of Pretoria, South Africa, pp. 42-48.

Blog Posts

2020    Sharp, John, and Sibel Kusimba. South Africa in Lockdown: Innovation in G2P Payments http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2020/06/part-3-south-africa-in-lockdown.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ImtfiBlog+%28IMTFI+Blog%29

2020    Kusimba, Sibel, Chap Kusimba, and Gabriel Kunyu. The War onC COVID in Kenya: Will the Social Networks of Mobile Money Survive? http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2020/05/part-2-war-on-covid-in-kenya-will.html

2020    Kusimba, Sibel. Covid and Digital Payment in Kenya and South Africa: Crisis Innovation? http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2020/05/part-1-covid-and-digital-payment-in.html

2016    Kusimba, S., G. Kunyu, and D. Mark. Women, Social Capital, and Financial Inclusion: Linking Customer Data with Ethnographic Perspectives. IMTFI Blog, August 9. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2016/08/women-social-capital-and-financial.html

2015    Kusimba, S., G. Kunyu, and A. Wanyama. The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow, Part 1. IMTFI Blog, July 13. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2015/07/the-contingency-fund-and-thirteenth-cow.html

2015    Kusimba, S., G. Kunyu, and A. Wanyama. The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow, Part 2. IMTFI Blog, July 18. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2015/07/the-contingency-fund-and-thirteenth-cow_20.html

2015    Kusimba, S. Interactive Webinar Recap with Professor Kusimba and M-Changa. IMTFI Blog, March 26. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2015/03/interactive-webinar-recap-with.html

2015    Kusimba, S. Two New Videos about Networks and Mobile Money in Western Kenya. IMTFI Blog, April 3. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2015/02/two-new-videos-about-networks-and.html

2013    Kusimba, S. Grandmothers as Mobile Money Brokers in Western Kenya. IMTFI Blog, Nov. 11. http://blog.imtfi.uci.edu/2013/11/grandmothers-as-mobile-money-brokers-in.html

Research Grants

2016    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Changa Labs, Nairobi. Catalyzing Community Fundraising at Scale Using Mobile Money. ($30,000)

2015    The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine. Group versus Individual Strategies: Dynamic Social Networks of Mobile Money among Unbanked Women in Western Kenya ($11,400).

2015    Mellon Fund for Faculty Research, American University ($4,000).

2014    The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine. Mobile Money and Coming of Age in Western Kenya. ($27,410).

2012    The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine. Family Wealth, Family Ties: Remittances and Kinship in Western Kenya. ($19,800).

2011    Research and Artistry Grant, Northern Illinois University. International Remittances in Kenya. ($10,000).

2009    Fulbright Senior Scholar to Kenya, 11 months, 2009-2010. US Department of State ($60,000).

2008    Lorraine Cobb Faculty Fellowship for Travel to Istanbul, Turkey, Northern Illinois University ($2000).

2007    National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) #0648762 Archaeology of Mount Elgon, Kenya ($127,000) (Principal Investigator).

2005    Research and Artistry Grant, Northern Illinois University. Archaeology of Mount Elgon ($10,000).

2004    Faculty Research Grant, Northern Illinois University ($35,000).

2002    Faculty Research Grant, Lawrence University ($3000).

2000    National Science Foundation Archaeology Division Research Grant BCS- 0106664 ($150,000) (Co-PI with C. Kusimba).

1995    Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($10,000).

1994    National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Grant BNS SBR 93-20534 DISS ($11,712).

1993    Fulbright Junior Scholar to Kenya ($24,910).

1993    Center for African Studies Dissertation Research Grant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($400).

1993    Graduate College Dissertation Research Grant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($700).

1987    Travel and Tuition Grant to attend the Harvard University/National Museums of Kenya Koobi Fora Field School, Koobi Fora, Kenya, Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College.

Invited Grants from LOI; Not Awarded

2015    Not awarded, but one of three finalists invited to apply for a World Bank initiative on mobile money. Title: Situating the Mobile Money Experience: Ethnographic Case Studies from sub-Saharan Africa (a collaborative grant with the University of California, Irvine with a total budget of $300,000; American University component of the proposed budget was $60,000)

2015    Not awarded, but one of 250 out of more than 2000 proposals be selected from the LOI stage to final proposal: Follow the money: How are new digital financial services impacting women’s social networks and empowerment in Western Kenya? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($500,000).

Grants to Improve Teaching

2012    Course Transformation Project Faculty Fellow, Northern Illinois University ($5000).

2011    University Honors Program Course Development Grant, Northern Illinois University. ($5000).

2002    Curriculum Development Grant, Lawrence University ($1800).

Conference Chairperson

2019    Conference Chair, Society for Economic Anthropology, Orlando, Florida, February 2019. Meeting Theme: Wealth in People.

Invited Lectures

2019    Family Fundraising, Networks, and Care. Paper Presented at the ERC-Funded Workshop, Moralizing Misfortune: Anthropological Perspectives on Finance, Care, and Morality. University of Leiden, The Netherlands, July.

2019    Conference Chairperson, Society for Economic Anthropology Annual Meeting, February, Orlando, Florida. Theme: Wealth in People.

2018    Remittances. Invited Lecture at the conference Digital Finance in Africa’s Future, University of Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, Johannesburg, South Africa, October 23, 2018.

2018    (with Muchen Zhou and Boyang Ma). Kenya and China: Digital Payment Compared. Shanghai-California Innovation Dialogues. From Fintech to Insurtech in China and the United States. Irvine, CA, Sept. 27.

2018    Debt, Dignity, and Digital Finance. Paper presented at the Inaugural Roundtable of the Debt and Dignity Group, Princeton University, May 10.

2017    Group Finance and Digital Products in Kenya. Mobile Money, Development and Financial Inclusion in Africa, The Center for Development Studies, Cornell University, April 22.

2016    Mobile Money and Finance in Kenya. Invited Lecture at Financial Inclusion Research Day, University of Bath Program in International Development, United Kingdom, November 2.

2016    A Social Network Approach to Women’s Social and Economic Empowerment through M-Pesa Use. Invited Lecture at Women’s Empowerment and Digital Financial Services: Exploring the Connections. USAID, Washington, DC, June 8.

2016    M-Changa: A Digital Fundraising Platform in Kenya (with David Mark). Invited Lecture to CGAP, Washington, DC, April 28.

2013    Social Networks and Mobile Money in Kenya. Presentation to the Africa Council of The Field Museum, Chicago, September 24.

2006    Slave Trade and Ivory Trade on the Kenya Coast. Invited Lecture, American Institute of Archaeology, University of Iowa, November 6.

2006    Anthropology and the African Past. Invited Lecture at 100 Years at Loyola University Anthropology Celebration, Loyola University, Chicago, March 31.

2006    Archaeology of the Ivory Trade in Africa. Public Lecture presented at the Midwest Museum of Natural History, Sycamore, Illinois, February 12.

2005    African Archaeology and Hunter-gatherers. Colloquium Series, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, April 28.

2004    Mosaics in East African Archaeology. Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Oct. 25.

2002    New Research on Trade in Africa, Society of Wisconsin Archaeologists, The Oshkosh Public Museum, May 12.

  • Hunter-Gatherer Land Use Patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa. Noon Balloon, Field Museum, Chicago, October 28.
  • Human Adaptations in Africa: Ideas from the Hunter-Gatherer Ethnographic Record. Colloquium Presented to the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, April 8.
  • Fossils and DNA: Modern Human Origins. Talk for the Women’s Board, The Field Museum, April 11.
  • Origins: Five Million Years of Human Evolution. Public Lecture at the Field Museum, Chicago, February 10.

Conference Papers Presented

2019    Fundraising Care in Kenyan Families. Paper Presented at the American Anthropological Association / Canadian Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, Canada November.

2019    Media of Relational Work in Kenya’s Digital Consumer Finance. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomics (SASE), New York City, June.

2018    Kenya and China: Digital Finance Compared. Paper Presented at the Shanghai-California Innovation Dialogues: From Fintech to Insurtech in China and the US. Irvine, California, Sept. 28.

2017    It is Easy for Women to Ask: Gendered Finance in Kenya. Paper presented at the Society for Economic Anthropology Meetings, Iowa City, April 7.

2016    Dynamic Networks of Mobile Money among Unbanked Women in Western Kenya. Paper Presented at the Seventh Conference for Funded Researchers, IMTFI, Irvine, California, April 20.

2015    Mobile Money and Emergent Finance in Kenya. Paper Presented at the PAC conference, American University, October 3.

2015    Social Networks of Mobile Money among Friends and Family in Western Kenya. Society for Economic Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, April 15.

2015    Idioms of Practice with Mobile Phones and Mobile Money in a Coming of Age Ritual in Western Kenya. American Ethnological Society, San Diego, CA, March 15.

2014    Mobile Money and Coming of Age in Western Kenya. Paper Presented at the Sixth Conference for Funded Researchers, IMTFI, Irvine, California, December 10.

2014    Family Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya. American Anthropological Association, December 3.

2014    The Anthropology of Mobile Communication in Kenya. Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, Washington, DC, November 1.

2013    International Remittances and Networks of Mobile Money: Chicago-Bungoma, Kenya. Remapping the Black Atlantic, DePaul University, Chicago, April 13.

2012    Mobile Money and Social Networks in Kenya. Paper Presented at the Fourth Conference of Funded Researchers, IMTFI, Irvine, California, December 3.

2011    Family Wealth, Family Ties: Remittances and Stay-behinds in Bungoma, Kenya. African Studies Association, Washington, DC, November 12.

2008    Fortified and Refuge Sites of the Late Iron Age. African Studies Association, Chicago, November 22.

2004    (with Chapurukha M. Kusimba). Tsavo Archaeology: Mosaics of the Iron Age. African Studies Association, New Orleans, November 18.

2004    Quaker Missionaries as Anthropologists in Western Kenya. African Studies Association, New Orleans, November 21.

2004    Later Stone Age Archaeology in Tsavo. Society for American Archaeology, Montreal, April 9.

2003    Four Fields and African Archaeology. American Anthropological Association. Chicago, November.

  • Archaeology of Urban Hinterlands in the Tsavo National Park, Kenya. Society for Africanist Archaeology, Cambridge, July.
  • (with Chapurukha M. Kusimba). Later Stone Age Archaeology in Tsavo, Kenya. Society for American Archaeology, Chicago, March.

1998    The Howieson’s Poort Industry from Nelson Bay Cave, South Africa. Paper read at the biennial meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, Syracuse, New York, April.

1997    (With Chapurukha M. Kusimba). Who Were the Iron Age East Africans? African Studies Association, Columbus, Ohio, December.

 

1997    (With Chapurukha M. Kusimba). Who Were the Iron Age East Africans? American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November.

 

1995    Technological Organization Approaches to Africanist Lithic Analysis. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November.

1995    Obsidian Raw Material Transport and Use at Lukenya Hill, Kenya. Pan African Congress of Prehistory and Related Studies, Harare, Zimbabwe, July.

1995    Later Stone Age Lithic Raw Material Use at Lukenya Hill, Kenya. Society for American Archaeology, Minneapolis, April.

1994    Middle and Later Stone Age Lithic Transport at Lukenya Hill, Kenya, and Nasera Rockshelter, Tanzania. Society of Africanist Archaeologists, Indianapolis, March.

Other Professional Activities

  • Host and Content Specialist for Origins Electronic Field Trip, an interactive nationwide telebroadcast. The Field Museum, Chicago, April 8.

1999    Curator and Content Specialist for the Human Evolution Exhibit Origins, The Field Museum, Chicago.

Campus Lectures

2018    Using Smartphone and iphone in Visual Anthropology Assignments. Presentation at the Ann Ferren Conference, American University, January 11.

2015    Mobile Money, Digital Money, and Development in Kenya. Presentation to the Anthropology Society, American University, October 6.

2014    Mobile Money in Kenya. Lecture to Introduction to International Business with Professor Tomasz Mroczkowski, American University, November 13.

2014    Studying Social Networks of Mobile Communication. Presentation to the Anthropology Club, Northern Illinois University, March 18.

2004    Hunters and Others in East African Archaeology. Brown Bag, Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, February 29.

  • The Tsavo Research Program, Last Chance/First Chance Lecture Series, Lawrence University, May 25.

Courses Taught

American University:

Culture and the Human Experience

Senior Capstone

Taboos

Anthropological Research Methods

Anthropological Theory

Foundations of Anthropological Theory

Living in Multicultural Societies

Contemporary Ethnographies

Digital Humanity

Ancient Civilizations

Northern Illinois University:

Archaeological Method and Theory

Archaeology of Gender

Archaeology of Africa

Foragers and Others: Hunter-gatherer Lifeways

Ecological Anthropology

Migration and Diaspora

Peoples and Cultures of Africa

Ancient Civilizations

Ethnohistory

Lawrence University:

Freshman Studies

Introduction to Anthropology

Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Introduction to Archaeology

Colonial and Post-Colonial East Africa

Ecological Anthropology

Senior Thesis

M. A. Thesis Supervisor, Northern Illinois University: Shawn Smith, 2013, Tiffany Arnold, 2012, Ryan Szymanski, 2008, Sarah Howard, 2009, Justin Faulkner, 2007

M. A. Thesis Committee Member, Northern Illinois University: Sean McConnell, 2013, Kate Dewitt, 2013, Adam Kutryb, 2013, Jennifer Howard, 2008, Susan Kwosek, 2006, Rebecca Bria, 2004, Kevin Cooney, 2003

Ph.D. Committee Member, University of Illinois at Chicago: Rahul Oka, 2008; David Wright, 2004

Awards

2004    African Foragers named as a CHOICE outstanding academic book for 2003 by the American Library Association

1995    Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Graduate College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($15,000).

1994    Graduate Fellowship, Graduate College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($5,000).

1992    Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for the study of Advanced Swahili ($5,000), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

1989    Departmental Honors in Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College.

1987    Frederica de Laguna Award for Meritorious Academic Work, Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College.

Professional and University Service

Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA): Chairperson for 2019 Meeting and Local Arrangements Committee for 2019 Meeting; Awards Committee, Meetings Schedule and Other Ad-hoc Committees

African Studies Association (ASA): Local Planning Committee for 2008 Meetings

American University: Undergraduate Studies Committee, Curriculum Committee, Anthropology Club Faculty Advisor

Northern Illinois University: Provost’s Committee, Library Committee, College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Committee (Tenure and Promotion)

Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University: Personnel, Curriculum, Exams, Hiring Committees

Referee

Antiquity, Journal of East African Studies, Africa, African Studies Review, Journal of Development Studies, World Development, Oxford Development Studies, Socio-Economic Review, Economic Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Antiquity, American Antiquity, African Archaeological Review, National Science Foundation, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory

Memberships

Society for Economic Anthropology; African Studies Association; Fellow, Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) University of California, Irvine; Dignity and Debt Network, SSRC and Princeton University; Member, Women and Finance Community of Practice, CGAP (The World Bank).

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