About Christina

 

Professor of Anthropology, University of North Texas

940 565 2752 | christina.wasson@unt.edu

 

My work is motivated by a passion for three Cs: communicationcollaboration, and community-building, in both face-to-face and online contexts.

On the one hand, these concepts are objects of investigation. On the other, they are characteristics of my team-oriented approach to research.

To investigate the three Cs, I draw on insights from fields such as design anthropology, anthropology of technology, linguistic anthropology, and organizational anthropology, integrating theoretical and applied dimensions.

I am currently developing the Routledge Handbook of Applied Anthropology in collaboration with Edward B. Liebow, Karine L. Narahara, Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu, and Alaka Wali. This is an opportunity to rigorously explore a wide range of conceptualizations of applied anthropology, national traditions, and domains of application, framed in historical contexts and emerging trends.

While much of my work has been in partnership with the private sector, I am currently supporting Indigenous communities. I was lead organizer of UNT’s event series for the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.

I was trained as a linguistic anthropologist. After finishing my Ph.D., I worked for E-Lab, a design firm that used anthropological research to develop new product ideas. Here I developed an interest in the emergent field of design anthropology. I was a founding steering committee member for the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) and the Global Business Anthropology Summit.

 

Current and Recent Research


interdisciplinary collaborations at unt

Collaborators at UNT include faculty in the Department of Linguistics (where I am affiliated faculty), the Department of Design, the College of Information, and the College of Engineering.

 

Education

1996 Ph.D., Anthropology, Yale University
1989 M.Phil., Anthropology, Yale University
1987 B.A., Linguistics and Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley