The department of Anthropology is a research and training center with modern computer facilities, artifact and osteological collections, GIS and cognitive anthropology laboratories, and research and travel funding.  The department has one of the largest teams of Latin American scholars in the nation, with fifteen full-time positions for Mesoamericanists and South Americanists in addition to scholars from other departments and schools of the University and adjunct faculty.  Graduate students benefit from the high level of research activity and are encouraged to participate in faculty-run fieldwork projects and collaborate on resulting publications.  At present, faculty members are conducting major ethnological, linguistic, ethnohistorical, and archaeological projects in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, and the department has institutional affiliations with the universities and research facilities in each of these nations.  The department publishes the Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology, a series presenting scientific research in all subdisciplines of anthropology, and the Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology Monograph Series, which publishes archaeological research by Vanderbilt faculty, Ph.D.s, and other scholars.  The department is also the editorial seat of Ancient Mesoamerica, an international journal of Mesoamerican archaeology and ethnohistory, published by Cambridge University Press.  We are currently expanding the ethnology wing of our faculty and graduate program and we encourage applicants who will pursue careers in cultural anthropology.

Vanderbilt University is a private institution enrolling 10,000 students in ten schools. The University has a traditional and growing strength in Latin American studies, as reflected in its faculty, library holdings, and campus activities. Students and faculty with interests in Latin America come together in the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, which maintains its own publication and lecture series and provides student funding. Collections in the anthropology of Latin America are one of the strengths of the Vanderbilt library.