MA Project Report and Thesis Archive

Below you will find examples of graduate student work. This should help you gain an understanding of the range of projects and the format that should be used. Please remember that these projects are the actual work of our students and should only be used for format reference purposes.

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2024

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Research: An Inventory of California's Urban Place Management Organizations [pdf]
Project Report
Juan Carlos Aguirre

The Digital Experience in an Autonomous Vehicle [pdf]
Project Report
Nikolas Bonovich

Perspectives of Disasters and Risk While in Interim Housing [pdf]
Project Report
Gabrielle Fall

What We Learn from Nevis Potters: Keeping Visibility of Afro-Caribbean Community and Culture Alive Against Evolving Neoliberalism  [pdf]
Project Report
Jillian C. Ferini

Wine Country Migrant Farm Work in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic [pdf]
Project Report
Daniela Flores Paniagua

Murals As Resistance: Mapping Community Murals in the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Project Report
Kiley Stokes

2023

Arts as Community Expression: Mapping a Mosaic of Muslim Artists in the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Project Report
Caroline Ammon Yildiz

Homelessness and Taphonomy: A Multidisciplicary Study [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Chloë Angst

Unpacking Spatial Narratives: Universal Museum Design [pdf]
Project Report
Andriana Bodrouk

Belonging as Placemaking: Volunteers Creating Community at the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park “Food for Fruitvale” Pantry in Oakland, California [pdf]
Project Report
Anna Bryan Edmondson

Articulating Artifacts: Negotiating Object Biographies with Human Mediation at the Japanese American Museum of San José [pdf]
Project Report
Cibella Gamma

Reclaiming Place: Mapping Erasure and Cultural Sites of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Using ArcGIS StoryMap [pdf]
Project Report
Alexandra Garcia

Rent Relief: Stories from Succeeding Together 2009-2018 [pdf]
Project Report
Miguel Huerta

Making Future Care Visible: Applying Anthropology to Design a Future-Focused Care Tool [pdf]
Project Report
Patrick Padiernos

Factors That Inspire Youth to Pursue STEM Pathways in San Jose, California [pdf]
Project Report [pdf]
Kayla Celest Combes Taduran

Makkin Mak Nommo (We Are Still Here): Assessing the Impact of a Lasting Resource that Contributes to Indigenous Knowledge Building  [pdf]
Project Report
Cesar Manuel Villanueva

Cultural Atlas Users: A User Experience Research Project for the Mosaic Atlas [pdf]
Project Report
Graham Wade

2022

Breaking the Habit: Assessing Change and Identity in Virtual Communities  [pdf]
Project Report
Chioma Aso-Hernandez

"For Better or Worse": Imagining Innovation in Smart City Municipal Design [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Kevin Kochever

Serving Undocumented Students in a Time of Pandemic: Applying Anthropology for Improving Mentoring and Learning in Virtual Spaces [pdf]
Project Report
Edher Zamudio

Wholesome Food in Porcelain Dishes a Zooarchaeological Investigation of the Loma Prieta Lumber Company Camp [pdf]
Project Report
Lindsley Britton 

2021

Neogtiating Transportation Insecurity: Local Responses and Coping Strategies in San José, CA [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Andrew Ng

Entrepreneurialism as Precarity: American Bookkeepers and Technological Transformation [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Melanie Maxwell Bailey

Queerifying Hazards, Vulnerability, and Disasters in San José, California [pdf]
Project Report
Jhaid Parreno

IncluSikh: Inclusively Representing Sikhs and Sikhism in Northern California and the Central Valley [pdf]
Project Report
Shilpa Shah

Maximizing The Value of Archaeological Collections to Multuple Stakeholders: Collections Rehabilitation of the Deep Creek Site At The Veterans Curation Program [pdf]
Project Report
Leah Grant

2020

Project Prepared: Building Community through Disaster Preparedness in San José’s Japantown and Hensley Historic District [pdf]
Project Report
Vanessa Castro

Freeways and Farms: Veggielution at Emma Prusch Farm Park and Taylor Street Urban Farms Study [pdf]
Project Report
Ashley Estrada

Un Largo Destino con Distintas Experiencias: The Stories of Immigrants and Refugees in the Bay Area [pdf]
Project Report
Kristen Constanza

Significance of Community Collaboration Relationships: Eritrean and Ethiopian Oromo Perspectives on Caregiving Practices and Strategies, Community Health, And Chronic Disease Prevention, Management and Treatment [pdf]
Project Report
Philmon Berhane

Providing Designers Insight into Visitor Experience and Values with Applied Anthropology [docx]
Project Report
Jasmine Low

Eat Well, Sleep Well, and Exercise: Latinx Self-Care Practices at San Jose State University [pdf]
Project Report
Edgar Daniel Maldonado

Reputation Relocated: Futures of Trust and Reputation in the Platform Gig Economy [pdf]
Project Report
Andrew Marley

Representations of Women and Minorities Groups in Comics [pdf]
Masters Thesis 
Laticia Marshall

It's Not All Fun and Games; Sometimes It's Just Games: Creating Video Essays to Teach Ethnographic Methods to Tabletop Game Designers [pdf]
Project Report
Jamieson Mockel

Organizational Culture and Collaboration at a Silicon Valley Startup [pdf]
Project Report
Andrea Vinke

Project Management for Student Sexual Health Organization: STI and HIV Knowledge, Prevention, and Care [pdf]
Project Report
Brett Witteck

2019

Evaluating the Roles and Responsibilties of Stakeholders in a Campus-Community Collaboration [pdf]
Project Report
Briza Diaz 

The Silicon Valley Approach to Poverty: Humanitarian Designers at Work in Financial Inclusion [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Jeffrey Greger

Pedagogies of Play: An Ethnographic Analysis of Activity-Based Learning in Two Elementary Classrooms [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Chelsea Halliwell 

The Town of Loma Prieta: Applied Archaeology in The Forest in Nisene Marks State Park [pdf]
Project Report
Arianna Heathcote

Recognition Through Remembrance: A Consideration of Muwekma Ohlone Oral Histories with Kuksu-Associated Material Culture to Infer Precolonial Connections to Place [pdf]
Project Report
Alicia Hedges   

Mobility Through Droughts: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Femora in San Francisco Bay Area Prehistoric Native Population [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Sarah Luce

Native American Urban Relocation Collaborative Oral History Collection: Establishing a Community Repository and Developing Community-Driven Collection and Archival Practices [pdf]
Project Report
Veronica Saldivar

Plastics in "Paradise?" A Look at Plastic Consumption and Waste Management in San Pedro, Belize [pdf]
Project Report
Megan Shaw

2018

Our Homes, Our Stories: Aging in Place for LGBTQ Communities in the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Simon Jarrar

The Conservation, Excavation, and Analysis of Ancient Human Remains: A Bioarchaeological Case Study of Prehistoric Reburials from Nevis, West Indies [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Marissa Massaro

Home Front Households: Propaganda and Patriotism in the Domestic Sphere During WWII [pdf]
Project Report
Shauna Mundt

Deciphering Cultural Markers of Space: A Study of Understanding Urban Landscapes and Human Behaviors for a Smoother Transition of Autonomous Vehicles in our Ecosystem [pdf]
Project Report
Bhargavi Pawar

Resisting Erasure: The History, Heritage, and Legacy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Project Report
Alisha Ragland

Landscape Mobility of the Precontact Ohlone: An Isotopic Investigation of Dietary Reconstruction, Landscape Mobility, and Marriage Patterns [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Kelli Sullivan

2017

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Collaborative Forest Restoration in the Sierra Nevada [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Michael Boero

Evaluation of Rural Native American Veterans’ Perceptions of the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System [pdf]
Project Report
Julianne Cadden

Brandy City: Recording an Historic Gold Mining Town in Sierra County, California [pdf]
Project Report
Elizabeth Fernandez

Street Vendors, Super Bowl 50, and the Spatial Politics of Immigration Control in Silicon Valley [pdf]
Project Report
Miguel Garcia

Creation of a Cooperative Protection Agreement between the United States Forest Service and the Mono Lake Paiute Kutzadika Indian Community for Protection of Kutzadika Sacred Sites on Federal Land [pdf]
Project Report
Robert Gelb

The Sediment Analysis of a Prehistoric Shell Midden from Nevis, West Indies [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Erika Harvey

Strategies for Serving Undocumented College Students in California: A Project in Applied Anthropology [pdf]
Project Report
Gabriel Manrique

A Study in Hoomanism: Understanding Meaning in Geek Philanthropy and Cyberanthropology [pdf]
Project Report
Ailea Merriam-Pigg

Organizational Analysis at San José State Athletics: Building the SASS Peer Mentoring Program [pdf]
Project Report 
Timea Molnar

Informing Archaeological Site Management through Faunal Analysis: An Exercise in Applied Zooarchaeology at CA-SCR-10 [pdf]
Project Report
Angela Moniz

Academic Barriers for Migrant Middle School Students in Salinas, California [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Alexa Terhorst

Equine Assisted Therapy on People with Multiple Sclerosis, A Case Study [pdf]
Project Report
Deborah N. Walde-Baughn

2016

The Anthropology Motivation: A Qualitative Study of Volunteers at Sacred Heart Community Service [pdf]
Project Report
Danielle Anderson

A Hero’s Welcome: Helping Veterans at San Jose State University Make a Successful Transition to Higher Education [pdf]
Project Report
Varsha Damle

Living between Borders: Transnational Marriage and US Resettlement Patterns in Sudanese Refugee Populations [pdf]
Masters Thesis
Deirdre Patterson

2015

Family Perspectives on Sustainable Living: An Anthropological Study Imagining Different Futures [pdf]
Project Report
Megan Aufdermaur

An Analysis of 3D Printer Users and Their Networks in the Silicon Valley [pdf]
Project Report
Armando Ayala

Learning Non-Violent Social Collaboration: Beyond Entertainment- Developing Video Games with Games with a Purpose [pdf]
Project Report
Benjamin Dubois

From Trauma to Trail: Proposing New Methods for Examining the Variability of Sharp Force Trauma on Bone [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Amanda Feldman

Understanding Participation of Racial and Ethnic Groups in Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Trails [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Angela Fuller

Connecting Archaeology and Community at Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park [pdf]
Project Report
Karen Johansson

Ritual and Religion in the Ohlone Cultural Area of Central California [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Douglas A. Jones

The Temporal Dating and Analysis of the Archaeological Assemblage Recovered from a Portion of Prehistoric Site, “’Arma ’Ayttakiš Rúmmey-tak” (Place of the Spirit Woman Spring) CA-SCL-125 [pdf]
Project Report
Elisabeth Mabie

Looking Backward, Moving Forward: The Experiences of Indo-Fijian Immigrant Women in California [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Ambrita Nand

The Maritime Shipping Industry of the Geographic Region Bounded by Aptos and Alviso, California, 1850-1950 [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Rebecca M. Spitzer

Understanding Participation in the Underground Economy in Oakland [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Ida Wilson

2014

Native American Response and Resistance to Spanish Conquest in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1846 [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Gustavo Flores

Anthropology in the Park: An Investigation into the Cultural and Civic Potential of Public Spaces [pdf]
Project Report
Emily Green

Experiences of Immigration Among Women from Taiwan [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Robert Johnston

The Excavation and Analysis of the Prehistoric Caribbean Remains: A Bioarchaeological Case Study of a Prehistoric Female from Nevis, West Indies [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Chris Keith

What Motivates Volunteers?: Organizational Analysis of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose [pdf]
Project Report
Chika Minami

Teaching Middle School Students to Level-Up: A Formative Evaluation of Integrating [pdf]
Project Report
Anne Newman

Health Matters Olinder: Health Needs and Practices in Olinder Neighborhood [pdf]
Project Report
Mercedes Ramans

The Temporal Dating and Analysis of the Archaeological Assemblage Recovered from a Portion of Prehistoric Site, “Satos Rini Rumaytak” (At the Hill Above the River Site) CA-SCR-12 [pdf]
Project Report
Jerry Starek

Forager Subsistence Regimes in the Thai-Malay Peninsula: An Environmental Archaeological Case Study of Khao Toh Chong Rockshelter, Krabi [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Hannah Van Vlack

2013

Globalization and Agriculture: Ensuring a Sustainable Future [pdf]
Project Report
Sarah Linn Gallardo

Reading Partners Tutor Perspectives Project: An Ethnographic Evaluation of Volunteer Experiences [pdf]
Project Report
Bethany Grove

The Multi-Movement: An Ethnography of Occupiers and Occupying [pdf]
Project Report
Hannah Hart

Refugee Resettlement in Oakland: Improving the Volunteer-Client Encounter [pdf]
Project Report
Kristin Keller

Formation of China’s First National Park: Interactions Among International NGO, Prefectural Government and Local Communities [pdf]
Project Report
Jing Li

Live Journal Loyalty and Melodrama: A Stakeholder Relations in Web 2.0 [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Christine Moellenberndt

How is the Past Preserved in a Pluralistic Society? A Case Study of the Portuguese in East San José as a Model for Interpreting Immigrant Landscapes [pdf]
Project Report
Catherine Mistely

Designing Software to Meet the Needs of International Users [pdf]
Project Report
David Mohr

Sabores Latinos: A Needs Assessment of Food Preferences of Latino Food Bank Clients [pdf]
Project Report
Sara Salinas

From Silk Road to Silicon Valley: A Needs Assessment of English Language Services for the Iranian Community [pdf]
Project Report
Cheryl Tombrink

2013

Ethnographic Assessment of Quantified Self Meetup Groups [pdf]
Project Report
Adam Butterfield

The Breast Cancer Journey [pdf]
Project Report
Jessica Donohue

Las Campeonas de Salud: Health Access, Social Networks, and Group Sustainability: An Ethnographic Evaluation [pdf]
Project Report
Sabrina Duenas

Madres Líderes: Empowering Our Families and Community [pdf]
Project Report
Jaqueline Gamboa

Aging Arab Immigrants: Family Portraits from the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Kanhong Lin

The Climate Clock Initiative: Interaction and Network Assessment (INA) [pdf]
Project Report
Loan Luu

Tod@s SOMOS Lideres: Cultivating Grassroots Leaders in Mayfair: An Ethnographic-based Evaluation and Curriculum Notes of a Grassroots Leadership Program Serving Spanish-speaking Women in East San Jose [pdf]
Project Report
Maribel Martinez

Capacity Building in the Technological Age: A Collaborative Project at Homeboy Industries [pdf]
Project Report
Josephine Nguyen

Evaluation of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Design Research [pdf]
Project Report
Mark Pratt

Fostering Empowerment within Special Education: Building Communication in a Specialized Program [pdf]
Project Report
Kate Snider

Developing Cultural Agility between Emergency Medical Providers and Vietnamese-Americans in Santa Clara County [pdf]
Project Report
Jason Vega

2011

Water and Power: Agricultural Intensification in Windward North Kohala, Hawai’i Island [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Christopher Avery

Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship: A Microfinance Project in Santa Clara County [pdf]
Project Report
Mayra Cerda

Silicon Valley Sparkplugs Project: Bridging Anthropology and Media to Address Issues of Civic Engagement [pdf]
Project Report
Nicole Conand

The Future of Diversity: A Forecasting Project [pdf]
Project Report
Jillian Griffith

Beyond Pink: Living with a Terminal Breast Cancer Diagnosis [pdf]
Project Report
Mary Koskovich

A Community of Practice in Obsidian Studies [pdf]
Project Report
John Schlagheck

A Community Needs Assessment on Mental Health Services Among Native American Indians in Santa Clara, California [pdf]
Project Report
Auda Velazquez-Rivera

2010

A Hazardous Waste Management Solution for Bogota [pdf]
Project Report
Andrea Arjona

Heal Project Process Report: Arriving at a Charrette to Effect Change at SJSU [pdf]
Project Report
Marina Corrales

Organizations and their Component Individuals Venturing Outside Expertise [pdf]
Project Report
Candice Heidebrecht

Collective Efficacy as it Relates to Public Safety in the Olinder Neighborhood [pdf]
Project Report
Michelle Nero

Perception of Risk: Evaluating Women’s Health Concerns in Silicon Valley for Creating a Viable Online Business [pdf]
Project Report
Vanessa Potter

2009

Gender, Status and Shellfish in Precontact Hawaii [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Robin Connors

Native California Prehistory and Climate in the San Francisco Bay Area [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Stella D’Oro

Rooted in Research: Anthropology and Design in Three Collaborative Projects [pdf]
Project Report
Alicia Murphy

Where the Pampa Meets the Moon: A Search for Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Quillabamba [pdf]
Project Report
Andrea Presler

2008

Applied Anthropology and Business: Financial Planning, Luxury Cars, and Microfinance [pdf]
Project Report
Greg Cabrera

Engineering in the Making: An Ethnography of Product Development [pdf]
Master’s Thesis
Armineh Noravian