Lessye Joy DeMoss
Student of Anthropology
University of Alabama Department of Anthropology
The Anthropology program at UA offers a Master's Degree in any of the subfields of anthropology: Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, and Physical Anthropology.
IN addition, it offers a Doctoral Degree either in the Archaeology of the Complex Societies of the Americas, or in Biocultural Medical Anthropology.
The campus
The University of Alabama is famous for its football program, but while others are watching the games, I can't take my eyes off the architecture and natural beauty of the campus and of Tuscaloosa.
This is the main building of the College of ARts and Sciences.
My adviser was Dr. William W. Dressler (Emeritus). a medical anthropologist whose interests include culture theory, community studies, cultural domain analysis, and the relationship between culture and disease risk.
Much of his work has been done in Brazil and in Southeastern United States.
Master's Fieldwork
My thesis fieldwork was done in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia during the summer of 2014. The goal of the research was to determine whether young men share a cultural model for goals they should be pursuing between the ages of 19 and 25.
Semi-structured interviews, free-listing, pile-sorting, and surveys were used to gather data for domain analysis.
PhD Fieldwork
My dissertation research used a cognitive anthropological approach for the topic of health disparities between Black and White Americans in the South. In a preliminary study, I used cultural domain analysis to identify the most important elements of shared cultural models--how people think things are, or should be--in regard to overarching life goals, family, lifestyle, and social support.
This was followed by in-depth interviews to explore the lived experiences of 15 women whose lives may or may not be consonant with the models envisioned by their community. The sample was divided by race and by hypertensive status, to make insights possible into how such experiences might inform or be informed by racial identity and health.