Kelsey Carter ‘17, from East Patchogue, New York, majored in anthropology while at the University of Rhode Island. She says originally chose URI planning to go into the environmental science program but that after taking a human origins course with Dr. Holly Dunsworth during her freshman year, she was inspired to change her major to anthropology. 

After graduating in 2017 hoping to get into cultural resource management, Kelsey applied to a field school in Flagstaff, Arizona, at the Coconino National Forest. She became enamored with archaeology and knew it was what she wanted to pursue professionally. At the end of her time at the field school, she was offered a position working on an excavation project in Palm Springs, California. “I spent about six months on that project while also working on some other projects at Camp Pendleton near San Diego, as well as in Truckee, California,” she says. “I got extremely lucky to meet some folks who worked out of the Albuquerque office of this company. About a month after that project ended I sent an email to that office and was offered a long term position as a field technician in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve been with them ever since and have been able to work all over the state.” In Kelsey’s new supervisory role as an Archeological Crew Chief with Statistical Research, Inc., she is able to take crews out to run surveys and excavations. She says this new role entails more responsibility and extensive archaeological knowledge but that it is incredibly rewarding. 

Kelsey credits her time at URI with preparing her for a future after her anthropology major, in no small part because it gave her a thorough understanding of the different branches of anthropology she could pursue. She notes that taking classes early on in her college career with Dr. Kristine Bovy helped her choose archeology. “I remember specifically being assigned to do a project in a class about cultural landscapes and cultural resource management, which is when I realized that was what I wanted to work towards in my future,” she says. “The guidance of the professors at URI have always been a wonderful resource ever since graduating almost four years ago.”