New Graduate Students
Chyna Lee
B.A. in Anthropology, San Diego State University
Language Spoken: English (Native); Spanish (Intermediate); Portuguese (Novice)
Interests: Natural and Anthropogenic Disasters, Bioarchaeology, Historical Ecology and Sustainability,
Human Impacts on Ancient Environments, Forensic Anthropology, Mortuary Practices,
Museum Curation, Repatriation, Caribbean Anthropology, Latin American Studies, Warfare,
Homeland Security, Boxing, Yoga, Cooking, Latin Ballroom Dancing.
Area of Expertise: Organization, Detail Orientation, Communication and more to be determined.
Past Research: N/A
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. - Malcolm X
Nina Garcia
B.A. in Anthropology, San José State University
Language Spoken: English
Interests: Archaeology, Travel, Video Games, Ethnographic Research, Music
Area of Expertise: Archaeology & Qualitative Research
Past Research: N/A
If you see beauty in something, don't wait for others to agree.
- Sheriham Gamal
Juan Carlos Aguirre
B.A. Organizational Studies, Minor in Anthropology, San José State University
Language Spoken: English and Spanish
Interests: My top interests are food, travel, music. My husband and I love to travel across
the globe, and my top favorite cities, so far are Mexico City, Barcelona, and London.
My expression of love is through food, cooking, and eating. I use cooking as a form
of meditation and a method to get in tune with my ancestors and the universe. And,
I love to pair the cooking experience with some salsa music or disco; or an excellent
true-crime podcast. Finally, I love spending time with my dog Rocco, an 80-pound Staffordshire
Terrier.
Area of Expertise: Program Management, Program Development, Stakeholder Engagement, Fiscal Management,
Grant Writing and Reporting, Fundraising, Impact and Evaluation, Research, Data Analysis.
Past Research: Project Consultant, Queerifying Disaster Preparedness and Response, SJSU Spring
2022, Developed a formal proposal for an original organizational development project, Co-organized
a small team to develop strategies to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion for
the LGBTQ+ community in disaster response, Designed sexual orientation, gender identity,
and gender expression training modules and needs assessment for disaster preparedness
organization members through e-Learning, Proposed and was awarded the Laura Good Grant
for Undergraduate Research.
Sam Bass
B.A. in Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Language Spoken: English
Interests: Food Culture, Travel, Hiking, Cooking, Mountain Biking, Maps, Trees, Old Cities, 90
Movies, Museums, and Cats.
Area of Expertise: Writing/Editing and (Aspirationally) Economic Anthropology and Anthropology of Food.
Past Research: Ethnographic Explorations of Housing, Homelessness, Gentrification, Bordering Practices, Market Ideology and Property in the greater Bay Area, Research on Regional and Immigrant Food Cultures as an assertion of (or challenge to) National Identities and Narratives.
Perhaps wisdom... is realizing how small I am, and unwise and how far I have yet to go. – Anthony Bourdain
Ethan Kelley
B.A. in Anthropology (Culture, Language, and Society), California State University, Sacramento
Language Spoken: English
Interests: Cultural Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Globalization, Online Communities,
Virtual Identities, Cryptocurrency, Cooking, Traveling, and Videogames.
Area of Expertise: Cultural Anthropology, Qualitative Research, Virtual Spaces.
Past Research: Exploring Virtual Settings and Identities in Final Fantasy XIV, Assessing the Effects
the Environment of Final Fantasy XIV has on the Development of Virtual Identities,
Misinformation in Media: Digital Conflicts Among Nations.
Veronica Reyes
B.A. in Anthropology, San José State University
Language Spoken: English
Interests: Music, Yoga, Running, Hiking, Mixologist, Anthropology of Addiction, Urban Planning.
Area of Expertise: Cultural Anthropology, Qualitative research methods, interviewing.
Past Research: Effects of Cumulative Disasters of Social Support and Mutual Aid Among San Jose State Students during the Covid Epidemic.
Never Give Up
B.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology, UC Davis
Languages: English (Native), Vietnamese (Intermediate)
Interests: Ethnography, Intergenerational (war) trauma within San Jose's Vietnamese American Catholic communities, Political Identities and Intergenerational Healing within the hardcore scene in the Bay Area and East Bay, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Music (breakcore, hardcore, experimental, post rock, shoegaze, death metal, videogame soundtracks), Art, Video Games (preferably JRPG on pc)
Area of Expertise: N/A
Past Research: N/A
We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive." - Mark Manson
