By studying Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas, you'll have the opportunity to work with nonprofit and for-profit community agencies and learn how to help solve some of society's most compelling problems.

Graduate Opportunities

The Master of Arts degree in Applied Anthropology teaches you to take informed and thoughtful action as a street-level practitioner, administrator, agency-based researcher or program evaluator. A dual degree is also available in Applied Anthropology and Public Health through a cooperative effort with the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth. The master's programs also prepare you to enter a doctoral program.

The Department of Anthropology offers several unique advantages including:

• Many opportunities to collaborate on projects with a variety of organizations including corporations and social service agencies
• Faculty members who are applied anthropologists with geographic focuses on Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia, Oceania and the Middle East
• Flexibility to take classes online or on campus (We offer the nation's first online master's program in Applied Anthropology)
• Faculty members who are engaged in building networks around the diverse applications of anthropology locally, in the North Texas region and beyond
• Prime location in one of the nation's largest urban areas for applied research projects such as those involving health issues of ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees from all over the world

In addition to their geographic expertise, our faculty members have extensive backgrounds in bilingual education, health, migration, race and ethnicity and sustainable communities. Some of their research has explored:

• Environmental health and sustainability
• Factors that influence food insecurity
• Outreach and educational attainment of Latinos
• Refugee and asylum seekers
• Place making and the urban environment
• Virtual communication and collaboration in the workplace
• User experience design anthropology

Areas of Interest

Students are not required to choose a specific track, but the department offers several areas of interest.

• Anthropology of Education focuses on understanding various aspects related to the educational process. It explores the connection between culture and education in a variety of contexts, paying particular attention to concerns related to teaching and learning.
• Business, Technology and Design Anthropology includes the areas of organizational analysis and change, teams, user-centered design, marketing, communication in the workplace, human-computer interaction, consumer behavior, diversity and globalization. We work with both the private sector and the nonprofit sector.
• Crossing Borders: Migration, Religion, Identities includes the situations of migrants and refugees, religions and cultures of immigrant groups, and experiences of migrants to the United States.
• Environmental and Ecological Anthropology includes community-based conservation of natural and cultural resources, cultural landscapes/seascapes, indigenous peoples and protected areas, spiritual ecology, traditional ecological knowledge, human ecology, sustainable development, ethnoecology, political ecology, environmental justice, world views concerning the environment and globalization and environmental policy.
• Medical Anthropology includes public health, healthcare delivery, indigenous medicine and the health issues of ethnic minorities, migrants and/or refugees.
• Urban Anthropology focuses on social phenomena in cities with an emphasis on the relationship between spatial, cultural, and political-economic structures and the everyday life of people.