Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies & Public Scholar of Collections and Community Curation, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Holly Cusack-McVeigh is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She also holds an appointment as a Public Scholar of Collections and Community Curation at IUPUI. She is a former museum curator and professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage -Kenai Peninsula College. She earned a Master's degree in anthropology from Michigan State University, with an emphasis in cultural and medical anthropology, and received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her areas of specialization include Social, Medical and Cultural Anthropology, Folklore Studies and Oral History, Museum Studies, Native American and Arctic studies. Her most recent fieldwork involves sense of place on the Bering Sea Coast. Her research, recently published in a work entitled "Living with Stories,” explores the importance of place among the Yup’ik Eskimo peoples of the Bering Sea Coast. Holly has spent many years working as a research consultant for Native tribal communities in the United States and Canada. She has served as a liaison between museums and Native groups under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). She worked as a research consultant for the Native American Fish & Wildlife Society and served as an instructor for Phase I and Phase II Tribal Water Quality trainings throughout Alaska. She continues to serve as a research consultant on community-based, collaborative projects working to protect ancestral lands for Alaska Native communities, tribal museums and tribal village councils.
