Anna Curtenius Roosevelt

Dr. Anna Curtenius Roosevelt is a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Previously, her occupations included curator of archaeology at the Field Museum of Natural History, curator at the Museum of the American Indian, and guest curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Professor Roosevelt's research focuses on the Middle Amazon (primarily Paraguay and Brazil) and the Congo Basin (Bayanga and western Democratic Republic of Congo), where she also directs projects. Her interests are in human ecology and evolution and she has studied long-term human-environmental interaction in the tropics through grants from multiple organizations. Roosevelt led the excavation of the Painted Rock Cave in Brazil, which led to the revisit of human migration in the Amazon. Her work and recordings have earned her many awards such as Explorers Medal, Society of Women Geographers' Gold Medal, Order of Rio Branco and Bettendorf medals from Brazil, and honorary doctorates from Mt. Holyoke and Northeastern University.