Diane Doran-Sheehy
Department Chair

Erik R. Seiffert
Director

The Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences (IDPAS), in the College of Arts and Sciences, is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental program leading to the Ph.D. degree that draws upon faculty and resources from the Departments of Anatomical Sciences, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Geosciences, and History. The goal of the IDPAS is to train students for careers in research and teaching in archaeology, cultural anthropology, and physical anthropology. Students in the Ph.D. program who have already been advanced to candidacy may, upon petition, receive a master’s degree without submitting a master’s thesis.

Extensive laboratory space as well as desk space is available for all graduate students. The archaeology and physical anthropology labs housed in the Department of Anthropology provide facilities for the analysis of artifact collections— especially stone tools and faunal remains, application of remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), analysis of primate or human remains, and advanced electron microscopy (EM). Housed in the Department are archaeological collections from Africa, Long Island, the Near East, and South America. A fully equipped preparation lab provides opportunities for state-of-the-art mineralized tissue research.

Outside of the Department of Anthropology, interested students have access to the research facilities for comparative primate morphology, human anatomy, and human and primate evolution housed in the Department of Anatomical Sciences, which are at present unparalleled at any other institution. The collections include primate fossils; primate osteological material from Africa, Asia, and South America; and living nonhuman primates, including New and Old World monkeys and lemurs.

Also in the Department of Anatomical Sciences is a biomechanics lab that includes equipment and facilities for force-plate analysis, high-speed cinematography and cineradiography, and three-dimensional morphometrics, as well as bone strain and telemetered electromyography. Scanning and transmission electron microscope facilities are available elsewhere on campus. Students have access to excellent libraries and collections and to campus computing services. Fieldwork opportunities are available in archaeology, paleontology, and primatology.

plants, microscope

The Turkana Basin Institute provides IDPAS students with access to field opportunities for paleontology and archaeology in northern Kenya.
Additionally, the archaeology faculty have active field sites in Eritrea, Kenya, Long Island, Sudan,
and Turkey. Paleontological field research is
ongoing in Argentina, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, North America, and South Africa.
Ethnographic work is ongoing in China, East Timor, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Spain, Venezuela. Primate behavior research is conducted in Argentina, Central Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Thailand.

The Institute for Long Island Archaeology conducts cultural resource management studies throughout the New York metropolitan area and provides support for graduate students interested in local archaeology. The Institute has a research library with extensive holdings on local archaeology
and history, and its large collections of prehistoric and historic materials are available for student research projects.

Currently, the IDPAS is unable to deliver a full curriculum in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. Thus, for the time being, the IDPAS will not accept any applications for the socio-cultural track. Students interested in Socio-Cultural Anthropology should apply to other programs.

Contact Us

To request information about applying to our programs contact:

Program Coordinator
Jean Moreau
Jean.Moreau@stonybrook.edu

Department of Anthropology
Social and Behavioral Sciences Building
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY, 11794-4364
Tel : (631) 632-7606

Apply Online at Graduate Admissions