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 – Rebecca L. Sanford, PhD, RCSW
Rebecca is an Associate Teaching Professor in the School of Social Work and Human Service at Thompson Rivers University, situated on the unceded territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc’ulucw. Rebecca has over 18 years of experience as a clinical social worker, researcher, administrator, and educator, with specialization in the areas of child and youth mental health, working with children and their families in community-based settings, program development and evaluation, clinical supervision and workforce development, suicide prevention, and intervention, and trauma and traumatic bereavement. Rebecca’s research interests include the impact of exposure to suicide, the suicide bereavement trajectory, disenfranchised grief, and ambiguous loss, and the development and dissemination of interventions for people who are bereaved or otherwise impacted by suicide.

Co-editor – Jennifer Shaw, PhD
Jenny is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Thompson Rivers University, within Secwépemc’ulucw. She has a PhD in Anthropology from Simon Fraser University and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Victoria. Jenny’s research explores the intergenerational implications of immigration and labor policies in Canada, focusing on Filipinx youths’ experiences of long-term family separation and reunification. Her research also concerns migrant domestic labor and gendered forms of work across borders. As a multimodal ethnographer, she employs photography, drawing, song, and poetry in her research as avenues for youth-centered expressions. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Children & Society, Anthropology of Work Review, and Global Studies of Childhood.

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, PhD, MPH
Kim is a biocultural anthropologist with a focus on the ways in which 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. Currently a post-doctoral fellow with the American Diabetes Association at Lurie Children’s Hospital, Kim will be joining the faculty of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia in the fall. Kim completed her MA and PhD in Anthropology and MPH from the University of Illinois at Chicago.