Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology

02/19/2026

We are excited to announce our visiting faculty for 2026 SIMA session (June 22 - July 17th):

Week 1 - Candace S. Greene (National Museum of Natural History)
Week 2 - Kamalu du Preez (Bishop Museum)
Week 3 - Sowparnika Balaswaminathan (Concordia University)
Week 4 - Kate Hennessy (Simon Fraser University)

This faculty will be in-residence during the program and work alongside Smithsonian staff who also will be teaching.

Applications are due - March 1, 2026

02/16/2026

Join SIMA Director Joshua A. Bell and SIMA alumni, Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Matthew R. Webb and ACLS Buddhism Public Scholar at the American Museum of Natural History Tierney Brown for a virtual Webinar/FAQ about The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), Monday February 23rd (11:00 – 12pm EST). We will be going over the program’s details and answering questions. The webinar will be open to the public but registration is required.

Register in advance for this webinar:
https://lnkd.in/eMriKYEa

SIMA is a paid graduate student summer training program in museum research methods offered through the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History with major funding from the Cultural Anthropology Program of the National Science Foundation. During four weeks of intensive training in seminars and hands-on workshops in the research collections, students are introduced to the scope of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History Anthropology collections. Students become acquainted with strategies for navigating museum systems, learn to select methods to examine and analyze archival and museum collections, and consider a range of theoretical issues that collections-based research may address. Throughout SIMA, students are also taught about the ethics of engaging with communities’ belongings in museums, and the practicalities of doing collaborative research. In consultation with faculty, each student carries out preliminary collections research on a topic of their own choice and develops a prospectus for research to be implemented upon return to their home university. SIMA is open to US citizens studying abroad or anyone studying at a US based institution.

SIMA will run from June 22 to 17 July, 2026, and is based in Washington D.C., at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. More information can be found here:

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/summer-institute-museum-anthropology

The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) at the Smithsonian seeks to promote broader and more effective use of museum collections – artifacts, audio recordings, art works, still and moving images - in anthropological research by providing graduate students with an immersive, four-week tr...

08/26/2025

Faculty fellow Attiya Ahmad (George Washington University) closed out the SIMA presentations by talking about her work during SIMA and her latest project:

Marked Silences and 'Explod-ings': Silk and Brocade Wedding Betls from Fez

Against a backdrop of a longer-term research project examining how late medieval and early modern silk textiles from the Iberian Peninsula can serve as sites and means to trace the production, contestation anditerative practices reproducing ethno-religious differences and interregional relations, this presentation
focuses on several SI Ethnology collection items labelled as ‘Silk and Gold Brocade Wedding Belt,’ that are attributed to Fez, Morocco. I consider major themes participants of SIMA have been encouraged to grapple with: the silences/absences that mark these textiles particularly with respect to anthropological study; the types of questions we can elicit by ‘exploding’ these objects; and how the question of
provenance, and museum/curatorial practices connected to these objects underscore importance features of these objects. I conclude with a brief rumination on why these issues may be of concern to us given our contemporary circumstances.

08/25/2025

Faculty fellow Flavio Silva (University of Alabama) presented on research during SIMA, and contextualized his broader work on lithics among the Maya:

Makers, Crafters, and Shakers: The Study of Maya and Mesoamerican Communities of Practice Through Lithic Technology

The research project is aimed at investigating the crafting, use, and circulation of obsidian artifacts in the ancient Maya and broader Mesoamerican world. Building on the previous research, the project explores how lithic production and exchange were embedded within communities of practice and shaped by regional networks of interaction. Through lithic analysis, archaeometric techniques (especially portable X-ray fluorescence or pXRF), illustration, and high-resolution photography, the study traces the social lives of obsidian tools across time and space. Focusing on legacy and previously excavated collections housed in museums, universities, and institutions in the United States and Mexico, this research engages with long-standing questions of sourcing and technological style while introducing new perspectives grounded in
practice theory. Following my research emphasis on the entanglement of people, places, and materials, the project highlights how obsidian objects were not only tools but also vehicles of social connection and identity formation. By reconstructing patterns of craft production and movement, the project contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how domestic economies, mobility, and interregional ties materialized
through lithics. The presentation invites audiences to see obsidian not just as a raw material, but as a
medium through which relationships (social, spatial, and historical) were forged and maintained in
Mesoamerica.

08/23/2025

Faculty fellow Attiya Ahmad (George Washington University) and Curator of North American Indigenous Culture Gwyn Isaac (NMNH) joined the SIMA interns Helen Martin (George Washington University), Sydney Nguyen (New York University) and Faith [Insight] Tenise Herd (University of Houston) to discuss their presentations (right to left).

08/22/2025

Sydney Nguyen (New York University) closed out the last session of intern presentations:

From Santa Ysabel to the Smithsonian: Reexamining the 1901 Dubois Accession through Indigenous Epistemologies

In 1901, Constance Gooddard Dubois, a writer and amateur ethnographer working under Alfred Krober, donated a small set of objects to the Smithsonian, including a sacred hoof rattle. Positioning myself as a Kumeyaay woman and a citizen of the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel working in collaboration with tribal mentors, I center Indigenous epistemologies to critically examine the conditions under which these objects were acquired, Dubois’ relationship with the Kumeyaay at Santa Ysabel, and the ethical implications of museum collecting practices in the early twentieth century. Merging non-Native ethnographic accounts with Kumeyaay oral histories, this project traces the role of music in Kumeyaay spiritual and everyday life,
exploring how musical practices have served as acts of resistance, survivance, and cultural continuity. In doing so, it advocates for the continued vitality of these objects and honors the individuals who were coerced into their relinquishment.

08/21/2025

Helen Martin (George Washington University) gave the second presentation of the fourth session:

K)not for Sale: Exploring Tungkulus in the Philippine Commission and Metcalf Sisters Collections

Behind the intricate design and meticulous craftsmanship of a tungkulu lies a wealth of information and complex relationships. The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (LPX) in St. Louis featured a Philippine Reservation, where Philippine people and cultural items were displayed, including members of the Bagobo, an indigenous group from southern Mindanao. Elizabeth and Sarah Metcalf visited the Philippine Reservation and were inspired to move to Mindanao shortly thereafter. The Metcalf sisters employed local women to create products for sale, including tungkulus, a special headcloth traditionally produced for and worn by Bagobo maganis (warriors). The collections curated by the Philippine Commission of the LPX (Accession
#044455) and the Metcalf sisters (Accession #057787) feature tungkulus, which prompts reflections on a) the production practices and characteristics of tungkulus and the cultural beliefs associated with them, and b) the relationships the Metcalf sisters had with the local Bagobo community, the women they employed, and
their desire to document, collect, reproduce, and sell local crafts. This presentation aims to explore these points within the broader scope of what it means to create a representative collection.

08/20/2025

Faith [Insight] Tenise Herd (University of Houston) started the fourth session of presentations on the second day of SIMA's end of the session presentations:

Black Out Survival

The preservation of Gullah Geechee culture of the Sea Islands and Southeast US is not fairly represented within the Smithsonian Anthropological collections. Like the diasporic movements of slave populations traceable in North American literature, the works of this community can be found in four various archives and six Smithsonian museums. From my exploration of all ethnology objects & Sturtevant Archives listed
under the NAA, all Gullah Geechee connections can be traced to communities of struggle and assimilation. Delineations like this presents the culture void of their literature, imaging, music, and media; at the same time, this ultimately allows anthropologists, the Smithsonian, and academics the right to capitalize on the
labor, language, and lifestyle of the Gullah and Geechee people. As such, this research will tell the story of the how accessible resources juxtapose autonomously cultivated stories, lineages on how their culture continues to thrive using the five-senses, and celebration of their stories from someone with adjacency to the cultures aligned.

08/19/2025

Faculty fellow Flavio Silva (University of Alabama) and emeritus staff and SIMA founding director Candace Greene joined speakers Faraz Saberi (Northwestern University), Mikaela Razo (University of Texas San Antonio) and Olivia Palepoi (Purdue University) to ask them questions and provide feedback about their presentations (right to left).

08/18/2025

Olivia Palepoi (Purdue University) finished the third session with her talk:

Sāō Fa'alālelei and Future Directions

The exchange of ‘ie tōga (fine pandanus textiles) between Samoan families and nobility is used to recognize significant events and ceremonies. Therefore, as an integral practice of maintaining Samoan relationships, this ongoing collaborative project aims to articulate the stylistic changes of ‘ie tōga over time within the
frames of size dimension, the average density of weaves, and variations in presentation (feathers, yarn, etc.). To accomplish this, I have applied linear inch measurements of dextral and sinistral strands from thirteen quadrant placements across five mats located in the National Natural History Museum collection. These
measurements I have collected will serve as a comparative point for other countries collections, such as collections in New Zealand and Germany, in order to trace the stylistic changes of ‘ie tōga and to contribute to research literature on a standardized methodological practice of measurement for Samoan ‘ie tōga. Finally, I will offer some reflections on my research experiences alongside the integration of this project
into my future dissertation work.

08/16/2025

The second presenter of the third session was Faraz Saberi (Northwestern University):

Revisiting Representations of Nomadic Asian Identities in Early Collecting: Nationality, Ethnicity, Tribe & the Gaze of ‘Nomadic Art’

From the late 19th century through to the mid-20th century, collectors of various occupational backgrounds - from missionaries to archaeologists - sought to grow the Smithsonian’s collection of ‘nomadic art’. Conceptually, this entailed examples of the everyday objects reflecting the ‘simplistic’ lifestyle of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. It also simultaneously involved a curious look into the extravagant, colorful
textiles from these same groups. While deconstructing the ways in which identities of nomadic groups from West Asia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia were recognized and represented in the catalog, I will explore how the museum’s categories of identity often proved to be awkward for ‘classifying’ this region. With the close cultural, linguistic, and political interrelation between nomadic groups in the mentioned regions acknowledged, I also explore the intersection between the gaze of collecting ‘nomadic art’ and how these collections can now serve in contemporary inter-group relations or weaving revitalization efforts.

08/15/2025

Mikaela Razo (University of Texas San Antonio) began the third and last session of the first day of SIMA final presentations:

Is Everything Really Bigger in Texas?: Exploring the R. King Harris Collection and its (Re)presentation of Texas History

This presentation examines how the Robert King Harris collection at the National Museum of Natural History shapes public understanding of Texan history and identity. Described as “robust” and “representative,” the collection is positioned as a comprehensive source of Texan cultural materials for further research and
comparative analysis. However, a closer analysis reveals a foregrounding of particular cultural, geographical, and temporal concentrations that reflects Harris's personal biases and agendas in his archaeological investigations. These selective emphases privilege a particular kind of narrative and image of Texas and its inhabitants. By highlighting the negative space of the collection, this presentation aims to
explore Robert King and Inus Marie Harris’s collecting history, arguing that such institutional holdings do not just preserve history, but actively participate in shaping knowledge about Texas and its diverse identities.