Douglas W. Hume, Ph.D.
Anthropologist & Educator
About Me
As Director of Assessment, Accreditation, Curriculum, and General Education at Northern Kentucky University, I lead campus-wide efforts to ensure academic quality and compliance by overseeing assessment systems, managing accreditation processes with SACSCOC, coordinating curriculum development and approvals, and supporting general education initiatives. I collaborate with faculty, staff, and administrative units to guide program reviews, maintain academic policy alignment, supervise key staff, and manage tools like Curriculog and Weave, all while fostering a culture of continuous improvement and institutional effectiveness.
My core research interest is discovering how humans interpret their environment and how these interpretations influence their behavior both with the environment and with others in their social group. In short, I have focused on the ethnosemantics of agricultural, conservation, and community development, attempting to link agricultural and conservation knowledge with behaviors. I use both qualitative and quantitative methods to discover, describe and explain how cultural models vary within and between social groups within the framework of cognitive anthropology.
My graduate work was focused on applied anthropological research of the transition from swidden to irrigated rice agriculture in Madagascar. In addition, I researched environmental knowledge variation among American bird watchers and college students (see my Curriculum Vitae for links to my publications).
After coming to NKU’s anthropology program, I continued my work in Madagascar. I also developed several applied research projects with students in Northern Kentucky, California, and Belize. In the process of working locally, I founded and now direct the Center for Applied Anthropology (CfAA) at NKU. The CfAA enables me to engage NKU’s undergraduate students in applying anthropology to prepare students for careers and graduate school in anthropology.
For more information about my research, see the following:
- Belize – Applied Ethnographic Research
- Kentucky – Applied Ethnographic Research
- Madagascar – Applied Ethnographic Research
- Other Projects….
A little more about me… My teaching interests include many topics and issues withing contemporary anthropology, including disciplinary introductory courses, area studies, and applied theory and methods courses. With all of my teaching, I attempt to inspire my students to be active learners through a variety of pedagogical approaches. For more information about my teaching, see the following: