Nicolette M. Edwards

BA Anthropology, University of Alaska - Fairbanks
MA Anthropology, Southern Methodist University

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolette-Edwards

Nicolette's dissertation research, Investigating Women's Provisioning Efforts in the Ethnoarchaeological Record of Central African Forest Foragers, is an ethnoarchaeological project - a study that involves the behavior of living people to better understand the archaeological record. Through this work she evaluates the relationship between women's efforts to provide food and the dietary patterns of contemporary forest forager women, men, and children in the Central African Republic (CAR). Her interdisciplinary research critically evaluates narratives about hunter-gatherer diets and provisioning goals past (including in reference to human evolution) and present by centering women as key providers, a crucial approach in a realm of study that traditionally focuses on men. She uses ethnographic and health-related data collected among the forest foragers in conjunction with various biomolecular scientific analyses on hair samples that provide independent measures of diet (i.e., stable isotopes) and stress (i.e., cortisol hormones) as well as statistical analyses and models. Doing so informs on what people are actually eating as well as elucidates who is providing the food consumed by the group. Ultimately, her research directly challenges previous conceptions about past and present hunter-gatherer diets and women's impact on them.

More broadly, Nicolette's research interests encompass a wide range of topics, including ethnoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, biomolecular anthropology/archaeology, hunter-gatherers/forest foragers and other non-industrialized populations, dietary patterns and foodways, and women's provisioning efforts. She has also conducted archaeological fieldwork and research in Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, and Central and East Africa, and has extensive lab-related experience.

Prior to SMU, Nicolette earned her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spent her summers conducting archaeological fieldwork in the backcountry of the Alaskan Interior. Nicolette moved to Dallas to begin her Ph.D. in Anthropology in the Fall of 2018 and has received her M.A. in Anthropology from SMU in Spring of 2020. Since starting the program her work has received funding and support from numerous internal and external sources. These awards include the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP), and, most recently, a highly competitive Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.) Scholar Award.

Entered program in 2018