Tenure-line Faculty
Amira Ainis, Assistant Professor
Michele Bleuze, Associate Professor
I am a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on understanding the various mechanisms underlying human adaptability in response to the physical, developmental, functional, and sociocultural environments. I am the director of the Subterranean Maya Bioarchaeology Project at Cal State LA. The Project consists of a multidisciplinary team of researchers whose goals are to reconstruct the lives of individuals deposited in caves across Mesoamerica and understand how these individuals functioned in ritual space.
Joyce Parga, Professor
Dr. Parga is a biological anthropologist who specializes in primate behavior and genetics. Her research includes such topics as mate choice, reproductive strategies, sperm competition, dispersal, and population genetics. In addition to her behavioral research and genetic analyses on ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) maintained on St. Catherines Island (Georgia, USA), she has performed laboratory genetic analyses on wild lemurs from Madagascar as part of her collaborative research with other field primatologists.
Aaron Huey Sonnenschein, Professor and Chair
Aaron H. Sonnenschein is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Cal State LA, and specializes in the Indigenous languages of southern Mexico both in Mexico and transnational contexts (especially Oaxacan Chontal and Sierra and Colonial Zapotec) and community-based language documentation and revitalization. He leads the Language Documentation and Research Space (LADORES) with long-standing partnerships with the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca and the Centro de Estudios y Desarrollo de las Lenguas Indígenas de Oaxaca (CEDELIO) that co-produce descriptive and pedagogical materials, digital tools, dual-language programs, and repatriate archival recordings to communities, with support from the American Philosophical Society and Mexico’s Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías (CONAHCYT). Graduate students in his group gain hands-on experience in collaborative field methods, ethical public scholarship, and projects across Oaxaca and Los Angeles that deliver measurable impacts for endangered language vitality, education, and cultural visibility.
Kathleen M. (Kate) Sullivan, Professor
Adjunct Faculty
Theresa Barket
My research focuses on prehistoric lithic technologies, including experimentation and analysis. I am also a skilled flintknapper with over 15 years of experience in a variety of different types of flaked-stone technologies from all over the world. I have primarily worked and conducted research in the lithic technology of the prehistoric Great Basin and California, and the Lower Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, and Neolithic periods of Jordan.
John Pohl
John M.D. Pohl is an archaeologist who specializes in the ancient Aztec, Nahua, Mixtec, Zapotec and Aztatlán civilizations of Mexico. Noted for bringing the ancient past to life using a wide variety of innovative skills, his background in archaeology, art history, and media has taken him from feature film and television production to museum exhibition development with the Getty Villa Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Princeton University Museum of Art, and the Museum of the Cherokee People among other institutions. He has published numerous books and articles including Exploring Mesoamerica and The Legend of Lord Eight Deer with Oxford University Press, the Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire for Getty Publications, Sorcery in Mesoamerica with University Press of Colorado and Reassessing the Aztatlán World with University of Utah Press.
Staff
Maricela Godinez, Academic Support Coordinator
Maricela Godinez, Department Coordinator, mgodin18@calstatela.edu, Phone/Ext: 2440