Rebecca Read-Wahidi and Jera R. Davis received the PhD in Anthropology in December. Read-Wahidi defended her dissertation, "A Model Guadalupan: Devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe and Psychosocial Stress Among Mexican Immigrants to the South." Her dissertation committee included Jason DeCaro (advisor), William Dressler, Michael Murphy, Kathryn Oths, and Mariana Gabarrot.
Davis defended her dissertation on October 17. The title of her dissertation is “On Common Ground: Social Memory and the Plaza at Early Moundville.” Her dissertation committee members were John H. Blitz (advisor), Vernon J. Knight, Lisa J. LeCount, Kathryn Oths, and F. Kent Reilly III. An article on her dissertation research will appear in the January 2015 American Antiquity.