Department of Anthropology at SUNY Plattsburgh

Anika Brown (Anthropology & Sociology '26) presents, Loving Our Country: A Listening and Documentation Project, at the Northeastern Anthropological Association annual meeting at Rowan University (April 2026).

Anika provided an overview of the collaborative project between ANT480 students and John Brown Lives!, a local social justice NGO, and then conducted several listening sessions. She was accompanied by Dr. Amy Mountcastle.

🎓 Congratulations to fall 2025 graduate TJ Miner on presenting at the 91st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology!

We’re proud to celebrate TJ's academic achievement and contribution to the field of archaeology!

Anthropology students,

Lets come together as a community to celebrate the journeys, insights, and achievements of our graduating anthropology students 🌍

See you there!

On March 27, we were honored to welcome alumnus Robert Johnson back to campus. He shared his inspiring journey with students, reflecting on how his degree in anthropology helped shape his path and continues to influence his work in public health today.

Join us for a special alumni talk featuring a 2021 SUNY Plattsburgh Anthropology graduate, Robert Johnson, who will discuss his career path from studying Anthropology to working in public health and epidemiology.

After completing his B.A. in Anthropology with minors in Archaeology, Biology, and Biological Anthropology, he went on to earn a Master of Public Health from SUNY Binghamton in 2023. He now serves as a Communicable Disease Epidemiologist and leads the Epidemiology Office at the Albany County Department of Health, overseeing disease surveillance and outbreak response.

In this talk, he will share how his Anthropology background shaped his career, discuss life after graduation, and offer advice for students interested in public health and other career paths.

In three recent articles Dr. Lowry and Dr. Justeson have been presenting data on ancient Maya and Zapotec calendrics. Dr. Lowry discussed archaeoastronomy and how we come
to understand the hieroglyphs related to calendrical systems. Using NASA's JPL Horizon's system and leveraging existing knowledge about the Mesoamerican calendars, we were able to establish both the earliest Mesoamerican lunar calendar among the Zapotec and a long-term method for maintaining an eclipse record in ancient Maya books.

Thank you to our dean's office in Arts & Sciences who host these Tuesday Talks!

Dr. Lowry was invited to be interviewed by some really incredible kids in the Lego Unearthed competition. And through their hard work and engineering they won!

Congratulations from the Anthropology department at SUNY Plattsburgh!!

This week's alumni shoutout is to 2016 graduate, Katya Castillo.
Katya works with the United Nations Population Fund in Nepal, strengthening services for survivors and supporting governments.

Congratulations on all your success!

"Traci Ardren , Scott R. Hutson , Travis W. Stanton , and Patrick Rohrer's new research article with our very own Justin Lowry documents the longest ancient maya road with new LiDAR imagery."

Sacbe 1 and Classic Maya Urban Culture | Latin American Antiquity | Cambridge Core Sacbe 1 and Classic Maya Urban Culture

Congratulations to our Anthropology graduates—TJ Miner, Owle Merle, Emma Klepeis, and Nicole Marks!