Current Board Members

President:

Michael A. Di Giovine, West Chester University.

Michael A. Di Giovine is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at West Chester University; Director of its Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, and Museum Studies Program; and Director of the Ethnographic Field School on Sustainable Food and Cultural Heritage in Perugia, Italy. An Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michael is also a former tour operator whose research in Europe (Italy, Spain) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam and Cambodia) focuses primarily on the intersection of tourism/pilgrimage, heritage, and sustainability. The founding President of the Council on Heritage and the Anthropology of Tourism (CHAT) at the American Anthropological Association, and a member of its Task Force on Cultural Heritage (2013-2016), he is also an expert-member of ICOMOS and its International Cultural Tourism Committee (ICTC) and was the longtime Convenor of the AAA’s Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group (ATIG). The author of The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage and Tourism (Lexington Books, 2009), Michael has authored or edited over fifteen special issues and volumes, and numerous articles and encyclopedia entries. An internationally renowned expert on tourism and heritage, he has been featured on National Public Radio, FOX, ABC News Australia, VogueThe Economist, and National Geographic, and has keynoted several conferences including that of the United Nations World Tourism Organization in Hamedan, Iran (2018). He is the Book Reviews Editor of The Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, and is the series editor of The Anthropology of Tourism: Heritage, Mobility and Society with Bloomsbury.

 www.wcupa.edu/michaeldigiovine.

President-Elect:

This position will be elected for the first time in the next election cycle. Learn about positions for which you could run right now!

Secretary:

This position is currently vacant. Learn how to run for this position!

Treasurer:

Erica Walters, Harvard University.

Erica Walters is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist with Living Heritage Anthropology. She focuses on applied anthropology; using research to make tangible improvements to the rights indigenous peoples have to lands, food, worldview, and objects. In addition to her role at Living Heritage, she works on grant-funded research in the Tribal Historic Preservation Office for The Delaware Tribe of Indians. She is pursuing a Masters of Anthropology at Harvard University.

Communications Chair:

Joe Quick, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Joe Quick is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Manchester. His research engages indigenous civil society in Latin America, with a well-established focus on community-based tourism organizations in highland Ecuador, and more recent research on uses of social media among indigenous youth throughout South America.

Program Chair:

Celia Tuchman-Rosta, Denison University.

Celia Tuchman-Rosta investigates the effects of tourism, national policy, and discourses of intangible heritage on the creative and economic development of classical Cambodian dance. She is currently co-editing a volume on Cambodia’s intangible heritage, and pursuing a project on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism in the Southeast Asian region.

Member at Large – Heritage seat:

Jessica Christie, East Carolina University.

Jessica Christie specializes in the visual culture of the ancient and contemporary Maya and Inka as well as rock art in the Americas. Her academic interests focus on three-dimensional environments framed by architecture and sculpture and the constructed performance spaces and landscapes. Her fields of interest have expanded from pre-contact to post-contact societies which she sees as linked and she explores their vibrant connections under the lenses of memory and Post-Colonialism.

Member at Large – Tourism seat:

This position is currently vacant. Learn how to run for this position!

Student Member at Large:

This position is currently vacant. Learn how to run for this position!