Faculty and Staff

Dr. Brooke S. Arkush

Professor of Anthroplogy
Bio

Brooke Arkush has directed the WSU Archaeological Technician Program since 1990 and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Riverside in 1989. He teaches a large portion of the archaeology curriculum, including Prehistory of North America, Archaeological Field Techniques and Archaeological Laboratory Techniques. Much of Dr. Arkush's research activity concerns the prehistory, protohistory and colonial history of western North America, especially in regard to communal big-game hunting, ancient settlement and subsistence systems and post-contact Native cultural continuity and change.

Dr. Joanna Gautney

Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Bio

Ph.D. Biological Anthropology, Tulane University (2016)
M.A. Biological Anthropology, Tulane University (2012)
B.A. Anthropology, California State University, Sacramento (2007)

Dr. Gautney is a biological anthropologist specializing in paleoanthropology. Her primary research focuses on the phylogenetic relationships between fossil hominin species, and the role interspecific hybridization may have played in human evolutionary history. Other areas of interest include paleoecology, paleodemography, and climate change during the late Pleistocene, and their role in recent human evolution and dispersal.

Dr. Francis Harrold

Professor of Anthropology
Bio

Dr. Harrold received his B.A. in anthropology from Loyola University of Chicago, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. He is an archaeologist interested in the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) of Europe and the Mediterranean, particularly in the period of the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans. He has done fieldwork in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, and Albania. He has also done research and publication on the history of archaeology, and popular pseudoscientific beliefs about the human past.

Dr. Ron Holt

Professor of Anthropology
Bio

Ron Holt is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in tribal politics and applied fieldwork. Most of his field work has involved American Indian tribes and tribes in the Middle East and Central Asia.

His research interests include Great Basin Native Americans, counterinsurgency, tribe-state relations, nomadic pastoralism, national policy, martial arts, radical Islam and honors education.

Dr. David Yoder

Professor of Anthropology
Bio

Dr. Yoder is an archaeologist with research interests focused in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau of North America and expertise in hunter-gatherer and early agricultural societies, cultural resource management, and archaeological law. His most current research investigates ideals of personhood in Fremont society through the study of anthropomorphic figurines and rock art; the interplay of historical archaeology and cultural resource management in the Intermountain West; the use of dune environments as foraging localities for prehistoric populations; and collaborative excavations of Fremont habitation sites in Utah Valley with colleagues from Brigham Young University.

Outside of the university system, Dr. Yoder’s career has included work in both the private and public sectors.  Since 2011 he has served as the archaeologist in the Utah Governor’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office where he administers the permitting system for archaeological work on state lands and advises state agencies in archaeological law and policy.

Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2009); M.A. Anthropology, Brigham Young University, Provo (2005); B.S. Anthropology/History, Weber State University, Ogden (2003).

Dr. Rosemary Conover

Professor of Anthropology
Bio

Areas of Specialization and Teaching Focus

1. Biological anthropology, especially human biological variation in growth and development and in epidemiology
2. Anthropological linguistics, especially sociolinguistics and discourse analysis connected to ethnicity and gender
3. Anthropological theory, especially pertaining to the history of anthropology