From prehistoric humanity all the way to contemporary cultural diversity, anthropologists engage with a wide range of issues and phenomena that affect individual and public life.
Waterloo's anthropology research and teaching expertise covers three major sub-fields of the discipline: sociocultural anthropology, archaeological anthropology, and biological anthropology.
Events
2026 Sally Weaver Award Guest Lecture: Dr. Courtney Handman
What’s the Matter with Sycophancy? Pathologizing Channel Maintenance for Chatbots and Humans
In this talk, Handman argues that sycophancy is both a poor diagnosis of what chatbots do and also a pathologization of everyday interactional routines among humans.
News
Public Issues Anthropology Alum Aicha Lariani featured in UWaterloo Arts blog!
Check out Rachel Maus' UWaterloo Arts blog article featuring our very own Aicha Lariani!
Aicha Lariani Receives The 2025 Sally Weaver Award
Congratulations to Aicha Lariani on winning the 2025 Sally Weaver Award!
The Sally Weaver Award recognizes excellence among MA students in Public Issues Anthropology, honoring the late Dr. Sally Weaver’s distinguished career as a pioneering scholar and advocate for justice and Indigenous rights.
Alum Spotlight: Benjamin Scher
Congratulations to Benjamin Scher MA '20, who will be graduating this summer with a PhD in Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford! Ben is headed to a postdoctoral position in global health at Princeton in fall 2025.