Sarah Kendzior, graduate student in sociocultural anthropology, and Anna Weyher, graduate student in physical anthropology, both received the $15,000 PEO Scholars Award.  The merit-based award is for women pursuing a doctoral degree or who are engaged in postdoctoral research.

Sarah Kendzior studies political anthropology, the internet and digital media, dissident politics, diaspora, nationhood, state conflict and violence, Islam, former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Uzbekistan.  Please visit her page on the Anthropology Department's website to view her publications.

Anna Weyher is the Principal Investigator and founder of the Kasanka Baboon Project. For her doctoral dissertation, Anna is studying the Kinda baboon (Papio cynocephalus kindae) in Zambia. Specifically focusing on social behavior and male-female relationships. After her fieldwork in Kasanka National Park, Anna will conduct laboratory work at New York University and The University of Michigan. To learn more about Anna's work, please visit her website.

P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization), one of the pioneer societies for women, was founded on January 21, 1869, by seven students at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Originally a small campus friendship society, P.E.O. soon blossomed to include women off campus.

Today, P.E.O. has grown from that tiny membership of seven to almost a quarter of a million members in chapters in the United States and Canada. The P.E.O. Sisterhood is passionate about its mission: promoting educational opportunities for women.

For more information about P.E.O., please visit their website.