Anthropologist Tristram R. Kidder, PhD, was installed April 7 as the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor in Arts & Sciences during a ceremony in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall.
“Professor Kidder has earned a reputation of excellence in the field of anthropology and archaeology, and has exhibited extraordinary leadership and teaching here at Washington University,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said at the ceremony.
A professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis since 2003, Kidder has served as chair of the Department of Anthropology since 2008. He will begin a second term as chair in July. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Harvard University.
Before joining WUSTL, he taught for 13 years at Tulane, where he continued his research on early Native Americans in the Mississippi Valley.
His archaeological research over the past 15 years has focused on the evolution of human societies in the Southeastern United States, including the emergence of social ranking and development of domesticated food crops. His interest in geoarchaeology has led him to undertake studies of the evolution and chronology of the Holocene Mississippi River using archaeological data.
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