I am currently the executive director of the Burlesque Hall of Fame, a museum in downtown Las Vegas dedicated to preserving and sharing the art and history of burlesque. In addition to managing the administrative work a small museum requires, I work with our staff to develop exhibitions and other programs, produce special events, and preserve a collection of some 5,000 costumes, stage props, posters, photographs, and personal effects representing 150 years of burlesque history.

I hold an M. Phil. (ABD) in cultural anthropology from the New School for Social Research in New York City, and have taught anthropology and gender studies at both University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the College of Southern Nevada since 2003. My academic work has ranged from Native American studies, particularly the mid-20^th century Meskwaki and their relationships with the non-Indigenous populations around them (including anthropologists), to the use of the social sciences in military counter-insurgency programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Broadly, my research interests are in historical anthropology and the history of anthropology, and relations between marginalized peoples and the societies they are embedded in.

In 2006, I co-founded the anthropology blog “Savage Minds”, since re-named “anthro(dendum)”, which became a Science top 20 science site and an important gathering place for anthropologists to share and debate ideas outside of the formality of academic publication and conference presentation. I am the editor of Anthropology at the Dawn of the Cold War: The Influence of Foundations, McCarthyism, and the CIA (Pluto Press, 2008), which collects essays exploring the various ways anthropology’s development was influenced between 1946 and 1964 by Cold War money, politics, and military power.