Anthropology and AI On Faculty and Program Readiness
Date: May 22, 2026
Description:
This webinar endeavors to address how departments and programs can integrate AI into anthropology curriculum and training, and explore practical approaches for curricular change, drawing on ACRN’s department advisory initiative, while addressing common faculty concerns and providing reassurance. It will include perspectives on teaching AI and robotics skills, with insights from faculty navigating these changes at the instructional level.
Host:
Kiran Jayaram
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
Participants / Presenters:
Lora Koycheva
Founder of Robots, Actually! & Assistant Professor at the Chair Brandenburg Technical University
Elizabeth K. Briodyy
Founder & Co-Chair, The Anthropology Career Readiness Network (ACRN)
Evan Fruehauf
Assistant Librarian, University of South Florida
This event is supported by NSF Award #2538588.
Preparing for Careers in the Age of AI
Date: April 17, 2026
Description:
This webinar helps anthropologists articulate and translate their training for roles in Al-adjacent fields. Participants will hear from practitioners who have successfully navigated the transition from anthropological training into applied careers across tech, consulting, and nonprofit contexts. Learn how to position your expertise, build your portfolio, and find opportunities where anthropological thinking is genuinely in demand.
Host:
Matt Artz
Founder of Azimuth Labs
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Participants / Presenters:
Jennifer Studebaker
Studebaker Consulting LLC & Co-Chair, Anthropology Career Readiness Network
Suanna Selby Crowley
President, National Association for the Practice of Anthropology & Lead Archaeologist, SWCA Environmental Consultants
Larry McGrath
Senior Researcher, Amazon
This event is supported by NSF Award #2538588.
Imagining Anthropological Futures with AI: Opportunities and Pressures on the Field
Date: February 16, 2026
Description:
This webinar explores how Al is shaping anthropology’s future – both the opportunities to intervene in Al development and the institutional, methodological, and professional pressures it creates. Speakers from industry, clinical research, and academia discuss what it means for the discipline to move from studying Al to actively building with it.
Host:
Matt Artz
Founder of Azimuth Labs
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Participants / Presenters:
Kate Sieck
Director, Human-Centered Al Toyota Research Institute
Sean Bruna
Staff Scientist, Human Factors & Clinical Safety Science Laboratory Medical, University of South Carolina
Kiran Jayaram
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
2026 SfAA Annual Meeting Program Chair
This event is supported by NSF Award #2538588.
Applied AI in Practice
Date: January 23, 2026
Description:
This webinar showcases how anthropologists are contributing to applied AI across diverse professional contexts. Participants will hear from practitioners and scholars who leverage anthropological methods and perspectives to shape AI-driven products, services, and research. Learn how user research and cultural analysis are being applied to real-world AI challenges today.
Host:
Matt Artz
Founder of Azimuth Labs
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Participants / Presenters:
Sydney Yeager
Senior Design Researcher, Walmart
Elizabeth Rodwell
Associate Professor of Digital Media, University of Houston
Sonja Hodgson
UX Researcher II, LexisNexis
Erin Broemel
Senior UX Researcher I, LexisNexis
This event is supported by NSF Award #2538588.
Anthropology and AI: From Past Engagements to the Contemporary Landscape
Date: January 9, 2026
Description:
This webinar traces anthropology’s long engagement with artificial intelligence and examines how earlier conversations, critiques, and collaborations shape the contemporary landscape. Participants will explore the historical foundations that inform today’s debates and gain perspective on how anthropologists continue to interpret and influence the evolving world of AI.
Host:
Kiran C. Jayaram
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
Participants / Presenters:
Matt Artz
Founder of Azimuth Labs
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Lora Koycheva
Founder of Robots, actually!
Assistant Professor at the Chair of Technoscience Studies
Brandenburg Technical University, Germany
This event is supported by NSF Award #2538588.
Decolonizing Anthropology Future Directions and Priorities
Anthropologists have long been concerned about the discipline’s relationship to colonialism, imperialism, and other oppressive structures and systems that create and maintain inequality. 21st century anthropology is different from the discipline of 50 years ago; a “critical turn” and a decolonial turn have been catalysts for a significant change in the understanding and practice of anthropology. Anthropologists today come from all over the world and study topics that range from Wall Street in the U.S. to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. We “study up” and try to turn our critical lens to inequality in structures of power and systems of oppression.
Framing Migration: A SfAA Global Roundtable
The knowledge that organizations assume, produce, and use on migration has short and long-range impacts on the people that move. How do organizations in diverse sectors conceptualize, operationalize, and apply such knowledge? What are the premises and bases for their assumptions, designs, and approaches of understanding and application? Do sectors dialogue or collaborate across organizational boundaries to maximize the impact of their policies and programs? After a short introduction by the coordinators, panelists representing six different sectors –print media, international assistance organization, non-governmental organization, museum exhibitions, think tank, and academia– present how they frame the underlying architecture of migration. The public is invited to dialogue with panelists to understand their framing, the impact of their actions on the migrants themselves, and future applications and reconsiderations. Organizers: Judith Freidenberg (UMD) and Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez (ASU).
Interfaces of Global Applied Anthropology
This series of webcasts are from a webinar convened by SfAA Global with the publication of Viral Loads: Anthropologies of Urgency in the Time of COVID-19 (University College London Press), edited by Lenore Manderson, Nancy J Burke, and Ayo Wahlberg.
