Dr. LaShaya Howie is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago where she was also a fellow at the Center for Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. Her dissertation examined contemporary Black funeral practices in the United States by analyzing the material practices of death care, the prominence of the body, and the discourses and imaginaries about these practices. Ethnographically located in Chicago and elsewhere, this research foregrounds the varied perspectives of death care professionals who care for the body in death and also tend to bereaved loved ones. LaShaya was previously a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow and her research has also been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Her teaching and research background consists of a range of topics and methodologies including archival work, ethnography, Black/Africana Studies, and museology.
