Chip Colwell is Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He received his PhD from Indiana University, and has held fellowships with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, National Endowment for the Humanities, and US Fulbright Program.
He has authored and edited 11 books, most recently Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture (University of Chicago Press). His TED Talk about the return of sacred objects from museums to Native Americans has been viewed more than 1 million times. His editorials and essays have appeared in such venues as The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and New Republic, while his research has been highlighted in The New York Times, BBC, and other corners of the Internet. He has garnered numerous awards, including a Colorado Book Award, two National Council on Public History Book Awards, and the Gordon R. Willey Prize of the American Anthropological Association.
Dr. Colwell is the founding Editor-in-Chief of SAPIENS—an online magazine about anthropological thinking and discoveries—and co-host of the SAPIENS Podcast.
He has authored and edited 11 books, most recently Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture (University of Chicago Press). His TED Talk about the return of sacred objects from museums to Native Americans has been viewed more than 1 million times. His editorials and essays have appeared in such venues as The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and New Republic, while his research has been highlighted in The New York Times, BBC, and other corners of the Internet. He has garnered numerous awards, including a Colorado Book Award, two National Council on Public History Book Awards, and the Gordon R. Willey Prize of the American Anthropological Association.
Dr. Colwell is the founding Editor-in-Chief of SAPIENS—an online magazine about anthropological thinking and discoveries—and co-host of the SAPIENS Podcast.
Chip acknowledges his home in Colorado is on the traditional lands of 48 Native American tribes who now live throughout the American Southwest, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains.