Faculty & Staff

Alana K. Cordy-Collins, Ph.D., Program Director

Alana Cordy-Collins, Ph.D., is a graduate of UCLA (1976). She is an Archaeologist whose primary specialization is Peruvian prehistory. Her current venture is the Ulluchu Project, a botanical research project on the north coast of Peru.  Her secondary specialization is shamanism, where she is developing a project in Mongolia. She is Director of the David W. May Indian Artifacts Gallery and Curator of the Collection.

Office: Serra Hall 221
Office Hours:  T-R:  1:15-2:15p;   W:  12:00-4:00p;   or by appt.
Office Telephone: (619) 260-4725
E-mail: alanacc@sandiego.edu

Angelo R. Orona, Ph.D.

Angelo Orona received his B.A. in Sociology from UC Santa Barbara, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA. His main area of interest is the ethnology of South American cultures. His field research focuses on Creole island fisherman of Venezuela.

Office: Serra Hall 208
Office Hours:  M-T-W-R:  2:00-3:15p;  or by appt.
Office Telephone: (619) 260-4008
E-mail: aorona@sandiego.edu

Jerome Lynn Hall, Ph.D. 

Jerome Lynn Hall is a nautical archaeologist who received his doctorate in anthropology (specialty in nautical archaeology) at Texas A&M University. Before coming to USD, he was the underwater archaeologist for Puerto Rico and President of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.  His current research projects include the excavation of a 17th-century northern European merchant shipwreck off the north coast of the Dominican Republic, as well as the documentation and publication of a 1st-century boat recovered from the Sea of Galilee. Jerome's leisure activities include hiking, camping, surfing, sailing, reading, attending the opera, and spending time with his dogs—Jack and Lehua—at Dog Beach.

Office: Serra Hall  212-B (Lab) and/or S-218
Office Hours:   T-R:  11:00a-12:00p & 1:15-2:00p (Bert's Bistro Patio);

                           or by appt.

Office Telephone: (619) 260-7865
E-mail: jeromeh@sandiego.edu

Amadeo Rea, Ph.D.

Dr. Rea is a taxonomic ornithologist and ethnobiologist whose work is focused on the greater Southwest. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1977, and worked as Curator of Birds and Mammals for the next 13 years at the San Diego Natural History Museum. His papers deal with the taxonomy and distribution of birds, avian paleontology, and zooarchaeology. His 1983 work, "Once a River: Bird Life and Habitat Changes on the Middle Gila," documents avifaunal changes in River Pima country. His work in ethnobiology includes two published volumes on the O'odham, a Southwest Uto-Aztecan group: "At the Desert's Green Edge: An Ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima," (1997) and "Folk Mammalogy of the Northern Pimans," (1998). All three were published by the University of Arizona Press. The third in this series, "Wings in the Desert: A Folk Ornithology of Northern Pimans," is about to go off to the press. Dr. Rea is a past president of the Society of Ethnobiology. 

Office: Serra Hall 220
Office Hours:  M-W-F:  3:30-4:30p;   or by appt.
Office Telephone: (619) 260-7472

Tori Heflin, M.A. 

Tori Heflin received her B.A. in Anthropology at the University of San Diego and her M.A. in Anthropology at San Diego State University. She is working on her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. A skeletal biologist and paleopathologist, her research and studies have focused on human skeletal remains in order to reconstruct past health and lifeways.

Office: Serra Hall 222
Office Hours:  T-R:  3:00-4:00p;   or by appt.
Office Telephone: (619) 260-7838
E-mail: theflin@sandiego.edu

Patrick Geyer, M.A.

Mr. Geyer is currently pursuing various ongoing field and laboratory projects in California, Peru, Turkey and Israel. As part of this work he is actively engaged in mentoring USD student interns in the techniques of archaeobotanical investigation. A specialization in pollen analysis will enable these future researchers to extract fossil pollen from archaeological sites for the purposes of environmental or behavioral reconstruction. Current journal publications include articles in the Journal of Field Archaeology (JFA, Spring 2001) and the Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ, Spring 2002). To view current research, go to www.sandiego.edu/~pgeyer/gamla.html

Office: Serra Hall 212-B
Office Hours: By appointment only.
Office Telephone: (619) 260-8806
E-mail: psgeyer@hotmail.com

Tim Gross, Ph.D.

Dr. Gross received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Washington State University and his B.A. from San Diego State University. He has participated in archaeological projects in the Siwa Oasis region of northwestern Egypt, Colorado, Washington state, and Arizona, as well as southern and central California. He maintains an active research interest in the archaeology of western North America, especially southern California and the Southwest. Topical interests include geoarchaeology, stratigraphy, and site formation; complex hunter-gatherers; early Formative cultures; storage architecture; and lithic technology. Dr. Gross served as managing editor for the Dolores Archaeological Program technical report series, including thirteen volumes published by the Bureau of Reclamation, on this important archaeological project in southwest Colorado. He is an archaeological consultant with Affinis in El Cajon, and sometimes teaches, as well. He is a past President of the Board of the San Diego Archaeological Center and has a deep interest in curation issues. He was involved in planning and fund-raising for USD's American Indian Celebration, and is looking forward to working with the May Collection.

Office: Serra Hall 219

Office Hours:  Not teaching Spring 2008

Office Telephone: (619) 260-4698

E-mail: tigr@SanDiego.edu

Therese Adams Muranaka, Ph.D.

Therese Muranaka is an Associate State Archaeologist for California State Parks' San Diego Coast District, based in Old Town San Diego. She has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in Tucson and specialized in Historic Sites Archaeology. After living on the Russian-Romanian border working with Late Neolithic steppe peoples, she returned to the U.S. to work with a groupof Russian religious dissenters who fled the 19th century Russian military to Baja California, Mexico. U.S. border history, and in particular, the history and archaeology of Mexican Era California are her current interests. She is currently writing a forward to publish the Jose Matias Moreno love letters from1860's California.

E-mail: tmuranaka@parks.ca.gov

Joseph Nalven, Ph.D.

Dr. Nalven received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. He also received his J.D. from the University of San Diego. Dr. Nalven was the Associate Director of the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias at San Diego State University. Dr. Nalven has developed a special topics course for the Anthropology Department— Anthropology 194 Peace and Justice. He is also a digital artist and his art work can be viewed at www.digitalartist1.com.

E-mail: jnalven@sandiego.edu

Rose A. Tyson, M.A.

Professor Tyson received her M.A. from San Diego State University. She is the Curator of Physical Anthropology at the San Diego Museum of Man, and spent ten years teaching part-time at USD. She is interested in human evolution and how diseases affect the human skeleton. She received the Eve Cockburn Service Award for 2007, at the 34th PaleopathologyAssociation Annual Meeting, held in Philadelphia, PA., in March 2007.

E-mail: rtyson@museumofman.org

Monica Wagner

Executive Assistant

Anthropology/Sociology

Office: Serra Hall 216

Office Hours:

Office Telephone: (619) 260-4698

Office Fax: (619) 260-2245

E-mail: monicaw@sandiego.edu

Joyce Antorietto, B.A. 

Ms. Antorietto received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, San Diego. She is the Collections Manager for the David W. May American Indian Artifacts Collection in the Anthropology Museum, Serra 214-B. She also works part-time in the Scientific Library at the San Diego Museum of Man

Office: Serra Hall 214A
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 8:00-4:00; Tuesday, Thursday, 8:00-11:00
Office Telephone: (619) 260-4238
E-mail: joycea@sandiego.edu