People
Anna Dixon
Instructor
Contact
Office: Davis 241 (St. Petersburg Campus Davis Hall, SW stairwell through Reception
287 doors)
Phone: 727-873-4959
Email: dixonar@usf.edu
bio
Dr. Anna Dixon studies people-plant interactions, past and present. As an ethnobotanist and medical anthropologist, her research interests include human-plant coevolution, landscape reconstruction and the economic and medicinal uses of plants. For her doctoral work, Dixon studied the transformation of traditional Hawaiian medicinal plants into the contemporary marketplace. This work entailed investigating how native populations incorporate traditional medicines and ideology into the treatment of contemporary diseases. Dixon has recently presented research on topics ranging from plants used in tattooing to the traditional uses of Florida鈥檚 endemic plants, which are endangered by development. Dixon teaches a variety of undergraduate courses, including courses on archaeology and cultural, biological and linguistic anthropology. Prior to joining USFSP in 2011, Dixon worked as a criminal investigator for the State of Florida, where she specialized in Death Penalty appeals. Her experience as a criminal investigator informs her courses on biological and forensic anthropology.
Education
- M.A., University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- Ph.D., University of Hawai驶i at M膩noa
Teaching
Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Archaeology, Introduction to Biological Anthropology, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, Archaeology of the Pacific, People and Cultures of the Pacific, Ethnobotany, Prehistoric Human Evolution, Food, Health and Culture, Health, and Illness and Culture.
Research
Medical anthropology, ethnobotany/paleoethnobotany, incipient agriculture in North America, traditional medicine of the Pacific Islands, traditional medicine in the treatment of chronic disease, pharmaceuticalization of traditional medicinals, and Oceania and North America.
Graduate Students
Shana Boyer.