Aron Crowell

OrganizationEmailPhoneAddressAnchorage , Alaska 99501United StatesBioDr. Aron L. Crowell is an Arctic anthropologist and Director of the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage. His research and publications in anthropology and archaeology focus on cultural ecology, coastal adaptations, paleoenvironments, Indigenous knowledge, and colonial history. He has curated major Smithsonian exhibitions in collaboration with Indigenous communities of the North including Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska; Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People; and the current Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. Crowell leads museum and community-based programs in Alaska Native heritage, languages, and arts and he is currently Principal Investigator for an NSF-funded study of the human and environmental history of Yakutat Bay in southeast Alaska. Crowell's Ph.D. in Anthropology is from the University of California, Berkeley and he teaches as an Affiliate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

Science Specialties

archaeology, ethnohistory, museum studies

Current Research

Archaeological site distributions and human settlement patterns along the Gulf of Alaska coast, with reference to resource distributions, sea level history and Holocene glacial history (National Park Service, USGS, Smithsonian Institution) Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Glacier Bay National Parks.