Catleya Award Recipient
Dr. Robert D. Drennan (2007)
Dr. Drennan holds the position of distinguished professor at the University of Pittsburgh Anthropology Department. A native of Kentucky, Dr. Drennan completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, and then continued his education at University of Michigan, receiving his PhD in 1975. Dr. Drennan then joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1977 and ever since has played an active role both within the University setting and beyond. Dr. Drennan was instrumental in the creation of the Latin American Archaeology Program in 1988, and is the Director of the University of Pittsburgh Latin American Archaeology Publications. In 2004, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of only three University of Pittsburgh professors to receive this honor. Dr. Drennan has also maintained an active and vital international role. Since 1983, he has been a Visitant Professor in the Anthropology Department of the Universidad de los Andes, Bogot‡, Colombia. Together with Carlos Uribe, a doctoral graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and former chair of the Anthropology Department at the Universidad de los Andes and colleagues from other anthropology programs in Colombia, Dr. Drennan was a vital part of the development of a collaborative project which would operate essentially as a field school for Colombian undergraduates. This project was enthusiastically supported and authorized by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology.
Dr. Drennan noted in a recent National Academy of Science publication that over the past 20-plus years since its inception, more than 300 Colombian students have participated in the outreach program, with many having gone on to receive master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and other universities abroad. "We've worked together with the institute and several Colombian universities to see that the existence of the research is of benefit to Colombia," Dr. Drennan says. He believes it is important for North American archaeologists to take such concerns seriously because, besides simply being the respectful way to treat colleagues in a different country, foreign archaeological research that does not take such an attitude is not likely to be permitted in the future. Dr. Drennan has been an instrumental and influential part of the Colombian anthropology community, and in the community overall, both in Pittsburgh and Colombia, and it that why Colombia en Pittsburgh recognizes his achievements with the Catleya Award and thanks him for all his hard work.
