About the Program

Stanford's graduate programs in Anthropology offer advanced, collaborative training in the study of human societies, cultures, and histories, past and present. Drawing on ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic approaches, our students pursue original research on questions of power, identity, inequality, health, and ecological change. Close faculty mentorship, rigorous methodological training, and a vibrant intellectual community prepare graduates for distinguished careers in academia, public service, and the private sector in a globally interconnected world.

What You’ll Study

What you will study at the graduate level depends on your particular degree, academic interests, and professional goals. Key features of our program offerings include:

• Broad and integrative inquiry across sociocultural, archaeological, linguistic, environmental, and medical anthropology.

• Rigorous training in theory and method, including ethnographic, archaeological, linguistic, and quantitative approaches to studying social processes at both intimate and global scales.

• Independent research and fieldwork, conducted in close collaboration with faculty mentors and culminating in original scholarship, from the master's thesis to the doctoral dissertation.