Dr. Ashley Stinnett, assistant professor of anthropology in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology, assumed leadership of the Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA), expanding her longtime involvement with the organization. “She will make an excellent President of the SVA, and I am confident that the Society will grow and develop under her leadership – she has built a strong and diverse team that will innovate and create new ways to engage visual anthropology in discipline,” said the Society’s outgoing president, Dr. Jerome Crowder.

As President of the SVA, Dr. Stinnett looks forward to fostering inclusivity and visibility in ethnography-based visual media, deepening the Society’s mentorship capabilities, increasing public outreach platforms and fostering continued growth in all disciplines.

During her two-year term as President, Dr. Stinnett will lead the SVA’s Executive Committee, comprised of four leaders and a 12-person Board of Directors representing academic institutions in the United States and around the world. ‘foreigner. It will facilitate the Company’s core platforms, including the Visual Anthropology Review journal publication, the Visual Research Conference, the Film and Media Festival, and attendance at American Anthropological Association annual meetings, in addition to awards, workshops, and professional and student partnerships.

For years, Dr. Stinnett has mentored graduate and undergraduate students in visual anthropology at WKU and as a Fellow of the Society. Original ethnographic films by his students have been selected for screenings at the Society’s Film and Media Festival. As a former pre-selector of this global celebration of juried film, Dr Stinnett has helped transition the festival to an online format, including making films available to educators and students for free streaming during of the month of November. She has participated in Society research conferences and has served on student award and conference programming committees.

A WKU faculty member since 2015, Dr. Stinnett is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist specializing in applied anthropology and visual anthropology. Her work in the latter focuses on applied visual ethnography, virtual reality and immersive environments, and sensory ethnography. Dr. Stinnett’s filmography includes Growing Together: Las Milpitas de Cottonwood Community Farm and Pima County Public Library Seed Library. She is currently co-authoring a crossover textbook on visual and multimedia ethnography for Wiley-Blackwell. Dr. Stinnett directs the Department’s Ethnographic Visual Production Laboratory and maintains a Youtube channel which presents the cinematographic productions of the students.

Section of the American Anthropological Association founded in 1984, the Visual Anthropology Society promotes the use of images to document and study human behavior. SVA members are teachers and researchers involved in all aspects of producing, interpreting and sharing visual forms in a cultural context. They examine how aspects of culture are visually expressed in still photography, historical photographs, film, video, and computer-generated images. SVA members explore how meaning, perceptions and cultural information are conveyed in art, architecture, objects, kinesics, proxemics, gesture, dance, communication and other visual aspects of the culture. They study how anthropological productions can be exhibited and used more effectively in classrooms, museums and television.