Archaeologist Earns Highest Professor Rank

Dr. Anna Prentiss, a UM anthropology professor and archaeologist, was named the University’s 12th Regents Professor during the Nov. 15 Board of Regents meeting in Missoula. Regents Professor is the top rank awarded to faculty members in the Montana University System.

“I’m just so very honored to be named Regents Professor – particularly given the extraordinary faculty on this campus,” Prentiss says.

She joined the UM faculty in 1995 and became a full professor in 2009. Her research interests include hunter-gatherers, village societies, ancient technology, evolutionary theory, and the method and theory of archaeology. Her fieldwork has taken her and the scores of UM students she has mentored around globe, from British Columbia and Alaska to Patagonia.

Prentiss has written and co-authored six books, including 2017’s “The Last House at Bridge River,” which details a comprehensive study of a single-floor aboriginal home in British Columbia during the 19th-century Fur Trade period.

At the Board of Regents meeting, Jenny McNulty, dean of UM’s College of Humanities and Sciences, said, “(Prentiss) embodies the idea of the scholar-teacher. Her students describe her as the best mentor ever.”