STEVEN L. WANG, then a student at City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, New York, received an award in May 2007 to aid research on 'Testing the Continuity of Middle and Late Pleistocene Hominins in Asia,' supervised by Dr. Eric Delson. Extensive research has been conducted on the topic of modern human origin(s), in which competing hypotheses attempt to posit where, when, and how Homo sapiens emerged.

ROBERT WALKER, while a student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, received funding in July 2002 to aid research on skill investment and subsistence activities among the Maku-Nadeb people of northwestern Amazonas, Brazil, under the supervision of Dr. Kim Hill. Walker investigated the long length of the human juvenile period, analyzing age- and sex-dependency in time allocation, food production, and physical performance in the Maku-Nadeb's small-scale economy for clues to the processes involved in the evolution of this trait.

MATTHEW DANIEL WALLS, then a student at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, was awarded funding in April 2011, to aid research on 'Frozen Landscapes, Fluid Technologies: Inuit Kayak Hunting and the Perception of the Environment in Greenland,' supervised by Dr. Max Friesen. This project explores how technologies can characterize the manner through which people experience and come to perceive their environment. The fieldwork is an ethnoarchaeological project in Greenland where the skills of seal-skin kayak hunting are practiced as a means of engaging Inuit heritage.

Preliminary abstract: Changes to the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) have reversed restrictions on marine hunting by Alaska Natives, while at the same time giving hunters an active role in scientific monitoring of ecologically sensitive species. I plan to conduct a year-long anthropological study of this mode of participatory monitoring in Northwest Alaska, and to investigate how it has affected cultural self-determination vis-à-vis subsistence resources.

CHRISTOPHER E. WALKER, while a student at the University of Chicago, was awarded a grant in August 2003 to research the social conditions of Tibetan language software development, under the supervision of Dr. John D. Kelly. Central to the research was a study of the Tibetan block of 'Unicode,' the de facto standard for encoding the world's natural languages in computer systems. More than a decade ago, Tibet University in Lhasa (China) played a central role in this emergent and powerful standard.

JOSHUA WALKER, then a student at University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, was awarded funding in October 2009 to aid research on 'Crisis or Reconstruction? Street Children and Diamond Miners in Mbujimayi, Democratic Republic of Congo,' supervised by Dr. Jean Comaroff. This research in the diamond mining town of Mbujimayi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, examined the lives and livelihoods of two socially marginalized groups of young people: street children and artisanal diamond miners.

MICHAEL M. WALKER, then a student at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, was awarded a grant in July 2005 to aid research on 'Commons or Enclosures? Negotiating Access to Wetlands in Manica Province, Mozambique,' supervised by Dr. William Derman. This research examines smallholders' access to, and use of, wetland resources in Sussundenga, Mozambique. It takes an historical perspective on how access to land and water resources has changed under various forms of land tenure in Sussundenga district over the last 50 years.

ANA VINEA, then a student at City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, New York, was awarded funding in October 2010 to aid research on 'Between the Psyche and the Soul: Mental Disorders, Quranic Healing and Psychiatry in Contemporary Egypt,' supervised by Dr. Talal Asad.

GAIA von HATZFELDT, then a student at University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, was awarded funding in October 2010 to aid research on 'Vernacular Justice: Adjudicating Corruption in Rural India,' supervised by Dr. Jonathan Spenser. Policy-making is not a static linear process, but rather, it is intrinsically dynamic, involving a broad constellation of variables, actors and activities. A significant variable in this dynamism of policy-making is the role played by civil society.

ANNA C. VON SCHNITZLER, then a student at Columbia University, New York, New York, received funding in February 2004 to aid 'Liberation in Times of Neoliberalism: An Ethnography of Policy and Privatization in Post-Apartheid South Africa,' supervised by Dr. David Scott. This grant funded research on how neoliberal policy is made, rationalized, and implemented in post-apartheid South Africa at the paradoxical juncture of liberation and liberalization.