Social Sciences Newsblog

Carl Blair, PhD

Carl Blair joins the Department of Social Sciences as a lecturer. He earned his PhD and MA in Ancient Studies from the University of Minnesota and his BA in History and Biology from St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

Blair has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, coordinator of Study Abroad at Michigan Tech, as well as a visiting assistant professor. He is an archeologist with a wide range of interests, particularly the rise of social complexity in pre-industrial societies. He has designed and led an undergraduate study abroad program in Cumbria, England, for Michigan Tech.

He has been team leader for Commonwealth Cultural Resources, surveying the historic and prehistoric remains on National Forest lands in both northern Wisconsin and Michigan. Blair is principal investigator for SMELT, an archaeological research project where both experimentation and field work is used to explore early, large-scale European iron-smelting industries.

Ryan Cook, PhD

Ryan Cook is a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences. He most recently taught at Saint Xavier University in Chicago.

Cook earned his PhD and MA in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago and his BA in Cultural Anthropology from St. Cloud State University.

Cook has authored more than 15 publications on religion, UFOs and culture. He received the Overseas Dissertation Research Grant in 2002 from the University of Chicago.

Melissa Baird, PhD

Melissa Baird joins the Department of Social Sciences as an assistant professor. She earned her MS and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Oregon and her BA in Anthropology from the University of California Berkeley.

Baird is a member of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology. She has been a reviewer for the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Otago Press and Arctic Anthropology.

Baird has presented nineteen times at professional meetings and has been invited to talk at five different events on archeology and anthropology. She also has published five refereed journal articles.

Rebecca Graff, PhD

Rebecca Graff is a visiting assistant professor for the Department of Social Sciences. Graff earned her MA and PhD in Anthropology, from the University of Chicago and her BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Graff has been a lecturer at the University of Chicago, an adjunct instructor at DePaul University, and preceptor and Earl S. Johnson Postdoctoral Instructor for the Master of Arts program in social sciences at the University of Chicago.

She has written extensively on archeological projects and cultural heritage. Graff also has an interest in languages, specifically Spanish, French, Latin and Hebrew.

Nancy Langston, PhD

Nancy Langston is a new professor in the Department of Social Sciences. Langston earned her PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of Washington, her MPhil in English at the University of Oxford, and her BA in English at Dartmouth College. She did a dissertation in zoology at the University of Washington and held the Eddy Postdoctoral Fellowship in ecology from the University of Washington.

Langston has published three books, 29 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, nine textbook and encyclopedia entries, and 20 journals, reviews, proceedings and white papers. Her interests range from the environment to history.

She has been a delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies and was on the board of directors of the Forest History Society.

Chelsea Schelly, PhD

Chelsea Schelly is a new assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences. She earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her MA in Sociology from Colorado State University, and her BA in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Schelly has eight publications, two book reviews, as well as two papers under review, and five papers and two books in progress. Her research interests are in environmental sociology, sociological theory, comparative historical sociology and science and technology studies.

Schelly has presented at 15 sociological conferences. She also has been both a teaching assistant and an instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Colorado College, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Colorado State University.