Rate My Professor Emily Schach

Emily Schach is a Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches core courses in biological anthropology, including ANTH 100: History and Theory of Biological Anthropology, ANTH 101: Human Evolution, and ANTH 105: Human Paleopathology. Her instruction spans both regular quarters and summer sessions, often delivered online. In 2023, Schach received the UC Santa Cruz Excellence in Teaching Award for the 2022-23 academic year. Student nominations highlighted her exceptional ability to present dense information in an engaging, digestible manner, her evident passion for the subject, and her commitment to student success by meeting them at their level, providing extra help, and allowing additional time for processing material in large classes.

Schach holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology from Arizona State University. Her doctoral dissertation, 'Andean Social Identities: Analyses of Community, Gender, and Age Identities at Chiribaya Alta, Peru,' examines social identities in the Late Intermediate Period Chiribaya polity at the site of Chiribaya Alta in southern Peru's Osmore Valley. Through three case studies, it analyzes community identities via coca bag iconography (mountain/farming designs in one cemetery versus water-related in another, aligning with farmer and fisher groups), gender roles using multiple correspondence analysis of grave goods (revealing normative patterns with individual flexibility), and elderly identities combining transition analysis for age-at-death with mortuary data (showing gendered intersections in later life). Her research includes bioarchaeological studies such as 'Feeding the Dead at Chiribaya Alta,' 'The Gendering of Children at Chiribaya Alta,' 'Of Mummies and Guinea Pigs: An Analysis of Burial Contexts at Chiribaya Alta,' 'Dressing the Child: An Analysis of Camisas at Chiribaya Alta,' 'Gender at Chiribaya Alta: A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of Funerary Offerings,' and 'Differential Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in a LIP and Late Horizon Skeletal Sample of Southern Peru.' Schach co-authored 'Drinking Locally: A Water 87Sr/86Sr Isoscape for Geolocation of Archeological Samples in the Peruvian Andes,' published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in 2020, which models water strontium isotopes from 262 samples to predict archaeological human tissue values, aiding mobility and provenance studies across Andean landscapes.