The award recognizes a faculty member who has an important impact on students and a special interest in the graduate seminar.

Morales, a double major in history and anthropology, is one of only 20 students nationwide to receive this prestigious award, which supports exceptional undergraduates in their pursuit of graduate studies in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

“I see them [India's projects] as symbols of Indian prescence or public proclamation of their capacity to now settle Kashmiri land, to occupy it when they can,” says Mona Bhan, Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies.

The fund was created in 1997 with a gift from the honoree’s daughter and Maxwell alumna, the late Mary Lou Williams.

“I don't think either the Indian or Pakistani governments actually want a war,” says Mona Bhan, Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies. “But neither of them wants to appear weak under any circumstances.”

William Burke ’25 B.A. (Geog/ESP) creates digital maps to identify areas at risk for childhood lead poisoning in the City of Syracuse. His research is funded by a SOURCE Bridge Award, supporting faculty-led undergraduate research at Syracuse University.

“Resettled Refugee Parent and Young Adult Perspectives on Mental Health After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” co-authored by Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Robert Rubinstein, was published in Discover Mental Health.

“Addressing the Triple Trauma of Factors Leading to Perinatal Health and Mental Health Consequences in Two Upstate New York Communities,” co-authored by Maxwell anthropologists Robert Rubinstein and Sandra Lane, along with Ph.D. student Kiara Van Brackle, was published in Behavioral Sciences.

The bi-annual First Book Subvention Award by ASEEES recognizes first-time authors who contribute to Slavic, East European or Eurasian Studies.

“Africa’s newest state has remained trapped in a cycle of civil unrest and perpetual peace agreements that have not translated into real peace for its citizens. As it stands, all indications are that the fragile peace is in danger, as President Salva Kiir has ordered the house arrest of his rival, Vice President Riek Machar,” says Jok Madut Jok, professor of anthropology.

Shannon Novak, professor of anthropology, has contributed to “The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Anthropology” (Routledge, 2025). Her chapter, “Blood, mud, and mucking around with waste,” examines the materiality and logic of separation practices involved in the gendering of landscapes, bodies and subjectivities at a mother goddess (Mariamma) temple in the industrial outskirts of Toronto, Canada. 

“Patchy Internalization: Transnational Migration and Local Buildings in the Bosnian Borderland,” authored by Associate Professor of Anthropology Azra Hromadžić, was published in Society.

Townsend joined the faculty in 1973, and through the decades served as a professor, mentor, writer and researcher in the Anthropology Department. He faced long-term health conditions but, so devoted to his craft and his students, he continued to teach through the spring of 2024. He passed away on Jan. 22, 2025, at the age of 83. 

Shannon Novak, professor of anthropology, has contributed to “Embodying Biodiversity: Sensory Conservation as Refuge and Sovereignty” (University of Arizona Press, 2024). The book was edited by Terese Gagnon ’18 M.A. (Anth)/’21 Ph.D. (Anth), a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lauren Woodard, assistant professor of anthropology, says the event was just one of several across communist Eastern Europe that showed how solidarity among people could foster resistance and bring change.

The undergraduate and graduate students received the recognition at the school’s Syracuse Centennial Celebration.

The open access book Ciudad y Arqueología: Desafíos y Experiencias en la Metrópoli del Siglo XXI (City and Archaeology: Challenges and Experiences in the Metropollis of the 21^st Century) features a chapter written by Odlanyer Hernández de Lara, PhD candidate in Anthropology.

The archaeology professor will give four lectures about his findings on England’s 17th century-involvement in the West African slave trade.