MA in Anthropology

The Department of Anthropology offers a program leading to degrees in anthropology at both the master’s and doctoral levels. Admissions preference is given to MA-seeking students who intend to pursue an MA-PhD sequence, rather than a terminal MA. Interdepartmental Concentrations available to students in this program include Black Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Museum and Exhibition Studies. The department has research laboratories supporting studies in archaeology, sociocultural anthropology, and biological anthropology.

One of the unique strengths of the department is its collaborative PhD program with the Field Museum. Under this program, curators in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum support, mentor, and help train graduate students. For example, Field Museum curators frequently serve as chairs or members of PhD committees and they commonly include UIC graduate students in their research projects. Graduate students also have access to many of the laboratories, collections, and other facilities of the Field Museum. While the collaborative UIC-Field Museum program can enhance the training opportunities of sociocultural and biological anthropology students, it is most widely used by archaeology students. The collaborative UIC-Field Museum program establishes a large concentration of anthropological archaeologists and members of these two departments conduct field research across the world. Students who are interested in making use of the UIC-Field Museum connection do not need to submit any additional information over what is requested for general admissions to the Anthropology graduate program.

The Department of Anthropology and the School of Public Health offer a joint degree program leading to a Master of Arts in Anthropology and a Master of Public Health. The joint degree program is designed to offer combined training in Anthropology and Public Health to graduate students intending to advance to the UIC doctoral program in Anthropology or Public Health. Students in the joint program may complete the Master of Public Health in either Community Health Sciences or Epidemiology.