Matthew Velasco, assistant professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Anna Whittemore, doctoral candidate in anthropology, received awards from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) at the SAA annual meeting on April 25. Velasco and Whittemore are both members of CIAMS, the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies (A&S).
“CIAMS is incredibly fortunate to have extraordinary faculty like Prof. Velasco and exemplary graduate students like Anna contributing to our community. We are delighted that the SAA has recognized their contributions to both scholarship and to the discipline,” said Adam T. Smith, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Anthropology (A&S) and director of CIAMS.
Velasco, CIAMS’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, received the Presidential Recognition Award, along with Sara L. Juengst, University of North Carolina, Charlotte. They were recognized for their outstanding service to the SAA as co-chairs of the Bioarchaeology Interest Group, which provided essential ethical consulting to the SAA Board and co-organized the 2025 Presidential Opening Session at the annual meeting.
Whittemore received the SAA Student Paper Award for her paper, "Defining a 'Good Candidate' for Skull Surgery: A Comparison of Cranial Fractures with and without the Trepanation Treatment in the Ancient Andes (ca. 800–1200 CE)."
The SAA is an international organization, founded in 1934, dedicated to archaeological research, interpretation and protection.
Ruth Portes is assistant director of CIAMS and a doctoral candidate in classical archaeology.
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