About Anthropology

We study humanity in its rich diversity across the world today and deep into the past.

Through their undergraduate and graduate careers, our students acquire a detailed knowledge about human populations past and present as well as the essential skills that enable all of us to engage with the world’s modern multicultural community in an ethical and just way.

Not only do Anthropologists document, investigate, and seek to understand cultures of other times and places, they also play pivotal roles in contemporary social and political debate and advocacy.

Whether it is working on diabetes susceptibility among San Francisco’s immigrant populations, on AIDS among the Maasai in Tanzania or on an excavation of 8000-year old villages in Romania, our students, faculty, lecturers and staff collaborate in research and teaching that broadens and refines knowledge of the human condition.

Anthropology Undergrad Students in Action

Students are working on artifacts from the excavations at the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco. Students sorted and catalogued assemblages before shipping them to artists and archaeologists around the world as part of the Ineligible exhibition at Portugal's International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.