Elizabeth Colson Biographical Information

• Positions
• Field Research
• Honors
• Past services; Professional or other Organizations
• Membership in Professional Organizations
  

Born: 1917, Hewitt, Minnesota, USA

Education: University of Minnesota, BA 1938, MA 1940;
Radcliffe College, MA 1941, Ph.D. 1945 (Anthropology)

Positions:

• Assistant Social Science Analyst, WRA, Poston, Arizona, 1942-43.
• Research Assistant, Harvard University, 1944-45.
• Senior Research Officer, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, (Northern Rhodesia), 1946-47, 1956-57, 1962-63.
• Director, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1947-51.
• Senior Lecturer, Manchester University, Manchester, England, 1951-1953.
• Associate Professor, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, 1954-55.
• Associate Professor and Research Associate, African Studies Program, Boston University, Boston, Mass., 1955-59; part-time Research Associate, 1959-62.
• Professor, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., 1959-63.
• Visiting Professor, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1963-64.
• Professor, University of California, Berkeley, CA., 1964-1984. Professor Emeritus, 1984-.
• Visiting Professor, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia 1987.
• Visiting Senior Research Fellow,Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, England, April 1988-April 1989.
  
  

• Women's lives and social change, Pomo Indians, Ukiah, California, summers 1939, 1940, 1941.
• Assimilation and resistance, Makah Reservation, Neah Bay, Washington, Oct 1941-Oct 1942.
• Relocation and response, Poston War Relocation Camp, Poston Arizona, Nov 1942-Sept 1943.
• The impact of economic and other forces upon kinship, familial, political, and religious life among the
  Plateau Tonga, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Aug 1946-Sept 1947, June 1948-Sept 1950; brief visits 1956, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1972, 1978, 1982, 1987, 1989,1992.
• Gwembe Tonga response to forced resettlement and the creation of an independent African state, Gwembe District and its diaspora, Zambia, Sept 1956-Sept 1957, Jan 1960, Sept 1962Aug 1963, July-August 1965, July 1972-1973, June 1973-Sept 1973, Dec 1981-Sept 1982, April-August 1992; May-August 1996; briefvisits 1968, 1987, 1989.
• The transformation or a frontier town, Darwin Northern Territory, Australia, July-Sept 1966.
• The Hopi-Navaho Resettlement Scheme, Navajo Reservation, Arizona and New Mexico, Dec 1976.
  
  

• Graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa cum Laude, 1938.
• Simon Senior Fellow, Manchester University, 1951.
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Stanford, CA (National Institutes of Health Fellowship), 1967-68.
• Lewis Henry Morgan Lecturer, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 1973.
• Distinguished Lecture, American Anthropological Association, Annual Meeting, 1975.
• Fairchild Fellow, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 1975-76.
• Distinguished Lecture, Southwest Anthropological Society, 1977.
• Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 1977.
• Harvey Lecturer, University of New Mexico, 1978.
• Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1978.
• Honorary Doctor of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, RI, 1979.
• Honorary Foreign Fellow, Royal Anthropological Institute, 1979
• The Bernard Moses Lecture in the Social Sciences, U. of California, Berkeley, 1981.
• Outstanding Achievement Award, Society of Woman Geographers, 1982.
• Rivers Memorial Medal, Royal Anthropological Institute, 1982.
• Faculty Research Lecture, The University of California, Berkeley 1983.
• The Berkeley Citation, University of California, Berkeley, 1985
• Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 1985.
• Malinowski Distinguished Lecture, Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting, 1985.
• Distinguished Africanist Award for 1988, American Association for African Studies, Annual Meeting, 1988.
• Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Zambia, 1992.
  
  

Past Service, Professional and Other Organizations:

• Member review panels National Institute of Mental Health and National Research Council.
• Member Steering Committee, World Food Study, National Academy of Sciences.
• Member Board on Science and Technology for International Development, National Academy of Science.
• Member, Joint Committee on Africa of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies.
• Member Committee on Ethics, American Anthropological Association
• Member Board of American Association of African Studies.
• Member, Advisory Committee, Wenner-Gren Foundation.
• Member, Council, Western Branch of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
  
  

• American Anthropological Association
• American Ethnological Society
• Association of Social Anthropologists
• Royal Anthropological Institute, Practicing Anthropologists
• Society for Political and Legal Anthropology
• American Society for Applied Anthropology
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Association for African Studies.

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