History

The Northwestern University Ethnographic Field School was formally established in the mid-1970's by Dr. Oswald Werner, then Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Dr. Werner is a highly esteemed anthropologist with many years of research in Navajo language and culture. He began his research on the Navajo Nation in the 1960's. In 1998 Dr. Werner retired and Madelyn Iris, Ph.D. was appointed Director. Dr. Iris had lived and worked on the Navajo Nation for a number of years in the 1970's, including teaching at Navajo Community College at Tsaile, AZ, and had been a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Werner. The program operated on the Navajo Nation until 2002. After a hiatus of several years, in 2006 the program relocated to the greater Chicago area. In 2006 the program also formed a collaboration with the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change at The Field Museum, building upon the success of the CCUC's previous internship programs.

Madelyn Iris, Director of the Ethnographic Field School, is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University, and is also Director of the Leonard Schanfield Research Institute, Council for Jewish Elderly, in Chicago. She has conducted applied research in many Chicago area communities for over 25 years. From 1989 to 2005 she was a faculty member at the Buehler Center on Aging, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.