Expert: Ralph Salier - 10/4/2007

Question
My daughter is ready to apply to college and wants to know the top undergraduate programs with an emphasis on biological anthropology. (My preferences: state school in Virginia.) Thanks.

Answer
Hi Margie,

One of the best schools at the moment is University of Tenn. They specialize in forensics but this is one of the best ways to target a dual career path. One in physical anthropology and the other in forensics.  As a young archaeologist, I acted as an assistant to the local police department to identify bones before they would call in the coroner.  

Other then this, there is a web site for the American Association for Physical Anthropology - www.physanth.org

At this web site there is a list of graduate programs in the field.  This is quite comprehensive and all have undergrad programs.  I went to Northwestern in Chicago and it was a combination of Archaeology and Physical Anthropology.  My masters was at Wayne State University where they worked on the very first Biological evalutations of HLA factors and the definition of populations by genetic markers.