About Us

About NEOS

Launched in 2007 as an Interest Group within the American Anthropological Association, the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) now boasts more than 1200 members in over ten countries. Members include academics and practitioners who publish on and work with, children all over the world. The need for an anthropological interest group concerned with children and childhood continues to center on the fact that, despite growing interest in the area of cross-cultural research on childhood, children’s experiences, and children’s rights, there are very few established places to discuss and publicize such work, especially outside the realm of education and health disciplines. 

Co-Editor – Courtney L. Everson, PhD
Courtney L. Everson, PhD, is an applied medical anthropologist working at the intersection of public health, prevention sciences, and social policy. She firmly believes that applied research and evaluation can catalyze systems change, community thriving, and family well-being. As a Senior Researcher and Project Director with the Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab at University of Denver, Dr. Everson fosters partnerships at all levels of government, in concert with community stakeholders and family leadership, to advance equity-oriented transformations in policy and practice.  With over twelve years of experience in research, community engagement, and leadership in health and human services, and expertise in perinatal care, early childhood, and positive youth development, Dr. Everson leverages the principles of collaboration, social justice, and interdisciplinary science to advance data-driven decision-making and strategic learning that is responsive, timely, and meaningful. In addition to serving as the Co-Editor of NEOS, Dr. Everson is also an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and a Research Collaborator with the Uplift Laboratory at Oregon State University. She also holds extensive experience as a strategic facilitator with multi-stakeholder groups; trainer and coach in diversity, equity, and inclusivity initiatives; perinatal health educator, birth doula, and postpartum doula; and in non-profit management.

Co-Editor – Maria V. Barbero, PhD
Maria V. Barbero, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University. She has a PhD in Global and Sociocultural Studies from Florida International University an M.A. in Comparative Studies from The Ohio State University. Maria is currently working on a book manuscript on south-south youth migration to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work on migration, nationalism & youth, has been published in journals such as Citizenship Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Maria’s research focuses on the migration-security nexus and how it impacts migrant populations in the Americas. She is particularly interested in the experiences of young people who straddle elusive boundaries between childhood and adulthood and how they experience state practices, discourses, and policies of protection and control.

Assistant Editor – Matilda Stubbs, PhD
Matilda Stubbs’ primary research focuses on the anthropology of social service administration, specifically the role of documents and bureaucratic culture in U.S. child welfare, adoption, and foster care services. She also teaches on a range of other topics including automobility and vehicularity, visual and material culture, communication, tourism, and sensory studies. Her most recent project focuses on the global political economy of youth slime culture and ASMR on social media platforms.

Assistant Editor – Alexea Howard, MA
Alexea Howard, MA is a recent graduate from California State University, Long Beach whose focus is in Medical Anthropology. She graduated at the top of her class with awards such as Distinguished Graduate Student, Academic Excellence, and Best Thesis. Alexea earned her BA (Honors) in Anthropology with a focus in Medical and Psychological Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles and received post-baccalaureate training in Psychology and Addiction Studies. Her research explores the way that concepts of health and illness are impacted by a sense of community and a gained sense of agency. Her most recent work focuses on reasons for continued use among those who participate and frequent pro-anorexia websites and how the use of these sites has impacted the community’s conceptions of health and illness as it relates to anorexia.

Assistant Editor – Kimberly Garza, MA, MPH
Kim is a PhD Candidate in Biological Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Her research takes a biocultural approach to how daily social interactions influence levels of stress and health status in adolescent girls. Working with middle school girls in the American South, she examines girls’ use of social interactions through ethnography and the use of biomarkers to better define the ways girls use social interactions in the development of identity and define social hierarchies – and how interactions, life events, and coping strategies are embodied. Kim has an MA in Anthropology and an MPH from UIC.

Copy-Editor—Sujatha Subramanian
Sujatha Subramanian is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University. Her research interests include girlhood and youth studies, juvenile justice and feminist geography. Sujatha is also an editor with the Detention Solidarity Network.

Digital Scholarship Intern – Delaney J. Glass
Delaney J. Glass is a Ph.D. student in Biological Anthropology at The University of Washington in Seattle. Her research area is at the intersection of human biology, evolutionary anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Her current work aims to understand how physical and social stressors are embodied (with impacts to Darwinian fitness and health) during adolescence and how this relates to cultural niche construction. She is currently a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow in the Middle East Center at UW, a trainee at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology and has recently joined the Advancing Arab American Health Network & Allies Research Group. She is pursuing training in qualitative and quantitative methods and is passionate about rstats and applying skills from Data Science to social science research.