Release date: Aug. 25, 2005
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Anthropologist Receives Top Professional Honor

Emory University anthropologist George Armelagos is the 2005 recipient of the Viking Fund Medal, an annual honor given to an anthropologist for outstanding achievement in the field by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The award recognizes achievements in anthropology that have transformed the discipline through research, mentoring and service. Previous recipients include Margaret Mead, Louis S. B. Leakey and Claude Levi-Strauss.

"This tremendous recognition from his peers is a testament to Dr. Armelagos' many contributions and groundbreaking work in the field. We're very pleased to see him receive one of anthropology's highest honors," says Emory College Dean Robert Paul.

Armelagos, a professor of anthropology and chair of the department at Emory, is a biological anthropologist. One of Armelagos' main contributions cited by the Wenner-Gren Foundation is the central role he has played in the establishment, development and promotion of bioarchaeology as a field that combines physical and medical anthropology, health sciences and archaeology into the influential multi-disciplinary discipline that it is today.

Armelagos also has done influential work on the evolution of food choice and the impact of agricultural transition on human populations in terms of health and disease. This work has resulted in a general theory of the evolution of human disease and the epidemiological transitions that have taken place throughout the course of human history.

Amelagos' teaching excellence has been acknowledged through Emory's George P. Cuttino Award given for excellence in undergraduate mentoring. He also received the Distinguished Teacher Award and the Chancellor's Medal for research during his tenure at the University of Massachusetts.

The Wenner-Gren board of trustees will present the medal and a $25,000 award to Armelagos at a reception Oct. 15. First awarded in 1946, the Viking Fund Medal continued to be presented to exceptional anthropologists until 1972. Reinstituted in 2003, the medal rewards a scholar still active in scholarship, pedagogy and service to the profession.

Armelagos is a resident of Atlanta (30309).

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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