1st Place Winner

Melanie Nichol

Melanie Nichol is a graduate student of Applied Anthropology at Oregon State University. Her thesis research examines the intersection of ritual, heritage tourism, nationalism, and the use of space as curating public exhibition and performance. Specifically, the SfAA presentation examined how carnaval performances in Santiago de Cuba have navigated politics and historic criticism to maintain an integral role in Cuban society, heightened even more so with increasing tourism. Melanie continues to research informal economies, rituals, and gendered access to tourist economies in Cuba. Future projects include an analysis of domestic police hiring practices and policies, and further research in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Honorable Mentions

Sarah Hartge

Sarah Hartge is a MAA student at the University of Maryland – College Park. Her research focuses on cultural heritage and how heritage is used to understand place meanings, particularly within coastal communities along the Chesapeake Bay. Her poster featured her work building a heritage resource for a coastal community on the Chesapeake Bay. Through mapping a cemetery and gathering stories and photographs to publish online, she created a toolkit for a rural church and other area institutions to use to engage with their heritage, both past and present. The product can be viewed here: http://rockcreekunitedmethodistchurch.com.

Lama Zakzok

My name is Lama Zakzok and I’m a senior at Baylor University from Austin, Texas. I’m graduating in May of 2017 with a degree in Anthropology and International Studies and a Pre-Law focus. In the future, I plan to attend law school and pair both my anthropological research as well as my legal education to help bring more light into the world.