Meet Our Staff

Collections Manager

Wendi Field Murray is an archaeologist and ethnohistorian who specializes in the Northern Plains of North America. Her research interests include museum collections management, archaeology of community, the personhood of cultural objects, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and archaeological and museum ethics. Her dissertation explores community-building and notions of belonging among Missouri River tribes after European contact and examines the role of settlement decision-making in the maintenance of Arikara identity and tradition through the 20th century.

Her career trajectory and methodological interests have been heavily influenced by her attendance at the Silver Creek Archaeological Research Project Field School through the University of Arizona, which centered on the ethics of archaeological practice, and the inclusion of indigenous voices and descendant communities in archaeological research. She has since conducted archaeological and/or ethnographic fieldwork for the Public Archaeology Lab, the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, the National Park Service, and the State Historical Society of North Dakota. She has been managing object collections in either government or university contexts since 2011. Murray currently manages Wesleyan University’s Archaeology & Anthropology Collection, as well as the art and archival collections held by the College of East Asian Studies.

Her publications can be found in American Ethnologist, Collaborative Anthropologies, Ethnohistory, and Plains Anthropologist. She has also contributed to multiple edited volumes and technical reports,  and has assisted in the development of various exhibits and media projects. Her current project explores the materiality of indigenous confrontations with assimilative pressures of the American reservation system during the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Murray has a BA in Sociology from Saint Anselm College and a BS in Anthropology (with a Public Archaeology concentration) from Bridgewater State College. She earned her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona’s School of Anthropology.

Student Staff