Troy Case Named Head, Sociology and Anthropology

NC State’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology will welcome Troy Case as head, effective July 1, 2020.

Case joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in 2003. He currently serves as the department’s associate head. Previous administrative roles include directing the anthropology program, directing graduate studies in anthropology and directing undergraduate programs for the department.  

Case teaches courses in general physical anthropology, human osteology, bioarchaeology, skeletal variation, and the relationship between disease and social structure over time. His research interests are in human osteology, bioarchaeology and forensic anthropological methods. He specializes in congenital defects and anomalies of the hands and feet, develops forensic techniques for sex- and stature-estimation from the limbs, particularly in populations from Thailand, and studies mortuary practices in the prehistoric past and what they can tell us about past human lifeways.

He earned his doctoral degree in physical anthropology from Arizona State University in 2003.  

Case takes over the department’s leadership from Bill Smith, who will return to the faculty after serving as head with distinction for seven years.

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology was named in 1953, but its roots date to 1920, when NC State taught its first sociology courses. Our areas of study were first established as the Department of Rural Sociology and History in 1923. We were the first department at NC State to award a doctoral degree, in 1926. By 1928, the first woman earned a master’s degree in rural sociology. The department has awarded thousands of undergraduate degrees and more than 500 graduate degrees.