Anthropology (PhD)
Our PhD program will provide you with a research-intensive experience alongside close academic mentorship. Our coursework and candidacy process facilitates professional and academic development. You’ll engage deeply with anthropology’s conventional disciplines through our core integrative themes:
- Culture, Health and Inequality
- Evolution and Ecology
- Space, Place, Knowledge and Power
- Visual Anthropology and Materiality
We strongly support doctoral students working in community-engaged contexts, as well as those pushing the boundaries of conventional fieldwork and lab techniques.
You have the option of combining this program with the interdisciplinary Cultural, Social and Political Thought PhD.
| Expected length | Project or thesis | Course-based |
|---|---|---|
| 4 years | Yes | No |
Quick facts
- Program options:
- Doctorate
- Study options:
- Full-time study
- Program delivery:
- On-campus
- Dynamic learning:
- Co-op optional
Outcomes
Our department structures doctoral students’ learning experiences to reflect the content, values and skills of our dynamic contemporary discipline.
Students in this program will:
- encounter a breadth and depth of anthropological ways of knowing from a multiplicity of perspectives
- engage deeply with the current state of knowledge within the chosen topic/area
- gain in-depth, multifaceted knowledge of particular peoples, processes, places and histories
- contribute original research to an important question in the discipline
- conduct fieldwork and/or work in the lab to generate valued knowledge informed by experience
- articulate a complex research proposal and communicate research results
- develop second language competency to aid in scholarly communications and/or fieldwork
- undergo professional development as a scholarly practitioner of anthropology
- practice project management skills including time management, data management, quality control
- practice accountability and leadership
- foster respectful, reciprocal, and collaborative partnerships
- engage in sustained community relationships
- understand and employ ethical principles, relationship and practices
- understand and navigate ethical dilemmas involved in different forms of anthropological research
- cultivate personal and professional integrity and accountability
Find a supervisor
PhD students must have a faculty member who serves as their academic supervisor. When you apply:
- you must list a potential supervisor on your application
- this faculty member must agree to be your supervisor and recommend your admission
To find a supervisor, review the faculty contacts. When you’ve found a faculty member whose research complements your own, contact them by email.
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier
Associate professor, acting chair Visual anthropology, sound studies, creative practices, digital media, infrastructure, Cuba, Canada
Accepting graduate students
Alison Murray
Associate professor Biological anthropology, functional anatomy, skeletal biology, life history
Ammie Kalan
Assistant professor Biological anthropology, primate behavioural ecology, animal communication, animal cultures, tool use, wildlife conservation, bioacoustics, camera trapping
Andrea Walsh
Associate professor, Smyth chair in arts & engagement Visual anthropology, visual culture & theory, contemporary First Nations visual culture
April Nowell
Professor Neanderthal, Paleolithic art and archaeology, Hominin life histories, cognitive archaeology, archaeology of children, Levant and Europe
Brian Thom
Associate professor, Provost’s engaged scholar Cultural anthropology, Indigenous legal orders and land rights, ethnographic mapping, space and place, Coast Salish
Accepting graduate students
D. Burnett
Assistant professor Medical anthropology, cultural anthropology, anthropology of race, anthropology of religion
Daromir Rudnyckyj
Professor, graduate advisor Money, capitalism, the state, ethnography. religion, finance, development, economy, globalization, social studies of finance, cryptocurrency, liberalism & neoliberalism, Southeast Asia, North America, Europe
Accepting graduate students
Erin Halstad McGuire
Associate teaching professor, undergraduate advisor Archaeology, material culture, funerary rituals, Medieval North Atlantic, cemetery archaeology, teaching and learning in undergraduate education
Helen Kurki
Associate professor Biological anthropology, skeletal biology, hominin functional anatomy
Accepting graduate students
Iain McKechnie
Associate professor Coastal archaeology, historical ecology, Northwest coast, zooarchaeology
Mélissa Gauthier
Associate teaching professor Economic anthropology, border studies, informal & illicit economies, cross-border trade, Mexico-US borderlands, Mexico, Yucatán
Robert L.A. Hancock
Associate professor Indigenous–state relations, Metis studies, Indigenous anthropology, history of anthropology, Indigenous education, Indigenous studies
Accepting graduate students
Stephanie Calce
Senior lab instructor, adjunct assistant professor Biological anthropology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, paleopathology
Tatiana Degai
Assistant professor Indigenous research methodologies, ethics, and community-engaged research, ethnographies of the North-Pacific/Arctic, language revitalization
Accepting graduate students
Tommy Happynook
Assistant professor Nuu chah nulth ways of knowing land, language, knowledge and Identity
Accepting graduate students
Program details
Providing you accurate admission requirements, application deadlines, tuition fee estimates and scholarships depends on your situation. Tell us about yourself:
Program details
Application deadlines
Admission requirements
Program specific requirements
You must have a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree (thesis- or project-based) in anthropology. You must have a minimum grade of A- (7.0 GPA) in your master’s program
As part of your application, you must submit:
- A 1-2 page statement of intent. This should highlight relevant aspects of your background and training, describe your general research interests and explain how your interests align with your potential supervisor’s interests
- A writing sample that best reflects your abilities. For example, a term paper, honours thesis or published paper. This sample can be any length.
- A current CV.
- Names and email addresses of 2 references.
- Post-secondary transcripts. Electronic copies of your transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended (including transfer credits) are fine until an offer of admission is made.
Program specific requirements
You must have a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree (thesis- or project-based) in anthropology. You must have a minimum grade of A- (7.0 GPA) in your master’s program
As part of your application, you must submit:
- A 1-2 page statement of intent. This should highlight relevant aspects of your background and training, describe your general research interests and explain how your interests align with your potential supervisor’s interests
- A writing sample that best reflects your abilities. For example, a term paper, honours thesis or published paper. This sample can be any length.
- A current CV.
- Names and email addresses of 2 references.
- Post-secondary transcripts. Electronic copies of your transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended (including transfer credits) are fine until an offer of admission is made.
Completion requirements
View the minimum course requirements for this program.
View the minimum course requirements for this program.
Funding & aid
Tuition & fees
Estimated minimum program cost*
* Based on an average program length. For a per term fee breakdown view the tuition fee estimator.
Estimated values determined by the tuition fee estimator shall not be binding to the University of Victoria.
Ready to apply?
You can start your online application to UVic by creating a new profile or using an existing one.
Faculties & departments
Related programs
Need help?
Contact Jindra Bélanger at anthtwo@uvic.ca or 250-721-7047.