Anthropology professor Dennis Van Gerven spoke to the CU-Boulder Alumni Association’s board of directors on Friday. He discussed his research in Nubia. The beloved professor will retire this spring after teaching for more than three decades.

Dennis Peter Van Gerven, Ph.D.

Dennis Van Gerven received his BA in Anthropology from the University of Utah in 1968. He did his graduate work at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and received his MA in 1969 and his Ph.D. in 1971. He has been a member of the Anthropology Department at the University of Colorado since 1974, and has been a President’s Teaching Scholar since 1995. He directed the University Honors Program from 1995 to 2005.

Photo printed with permission of Glenn Asakawa.

Dr. Van Gerven is a two-time winner of the Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Award, a three-time winner of the SOAR teaching award, the Honors Program teaching award, the Excellence in Education Outstanding Professor Award, the Teacher Recognition award, and is the 1998-99 Carnegie Foundation Colorado Teacher of the Year.

He has published widely on aspects of health and disease in ancient populations of the Nile Valley, and is known for his extensive collection of mummified human remains from Sudanese Nubia housed at the University of Colorado.