About Us

In 2005, Arizona State University’s top-ranked anthropology department expanded to become a unique transdisciplinary research and teaching unit, named the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. True to our four-field anthropological origin, we are committed to leveraging a long-term, comparative and holistic perspective on human origins and diversity as a way to understand and address complex problems and a deep concern for community engagement and social justice.

We stand apart from our peer institutions since nearly 30% of our faculty members are like-minded political scientists, geographers, computer scientists, mathematicians, epidemiologists and sociologists. This breadth provides the tools to focus on innovative solutions to complex societal and policy-making challenges, such as:

• How can we best recognize and respond to emerging disease threats?
• How we allocate natural resources to promote social stability, sustainability and well-being?
• How does the long-term trajectory of our evolution predict challenges ahead for our species?

Some of us are scientists, and some of us are more humanistically oriented, but all of our faculty:

• share a deep appreciation of the importance of intellectual rigor
• value science as a key pillar in our scholarship, but certainly not the only one
• respect the diversity of our approaches
• are proud of our ability to collaborate in highly productive efforts

Our integrated approach to use-inspired research creates a dynamic environment for student training, and a focus on how we can serve communities – academic and public – with outstanding scholarship about what it means to be human in the complex, globalized and rapidly changing 21st century. We manage eight research centers and institutes, a museum and nearly 40 fully equipped research laboratories, field schools and field stations spanning nearly every continent and thousands of curated research collections.

In this transdisciplinary and global context, we have developed real strengths in a number of areas that map onto those in more traditional “four-field” American anthropology and can boast nationally:

• the top evolutionary anthropology graduate program
• the top bioarchaeology graduate program
• the largest faculty of any anthropology program
• one of the highest levels of research productivity
• a stellar level of external grant funding, which has more than tripled in recent years
• rank near the top for the public impact of our research
• outstanding Ph.D. tracks taught by distinguished faculty in archaeology, bioarchaeology, evolutionary anthropology, ecological/environmental anthropology, medical anthropology, museum anthropology and cultural anthropology
• global health programs unique for their firm footing in the social and life sciences, especially medical anthropology
• an environmental social science degree focused on environmental problems in truly innovative ways, leveraging our partnership with ASU’s School of Sustainability
• applied mathematics for the life and social sciences programs taught by stellar faculty, which address timely issues of modern human life, such as pandemics and environmental degradation, through a mathematical lens
• an innovative museum studies graduate program and Museum of Anthropology where research is communicated publicly, and public engagement informs our scholarship

The School of Human Evolution and Social Change is a dynamic, rigorous, vibrant and collegial intellectual community committed to outstanding transdisciplinary scholarship that makes a difference. We invite you to join the adventure.