Faculty: Dr. Christopher Wolfe

• Ken Buday

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Dr. Christopher Wolfe doesn't view anthropology as an historic look into ancient societies alone. He sees a bigger picture that students must know to understand society today.

"An anthropologist is someone who understands that we humans are variable and dynamic in every aspect of our lives, and that's important in your everyday life," said Wolfe, an assistant professor in East Carolina University's Department of Anthropology. "I don't care if you're an engineer, a nurse or a doctor, you're going to have to talk to someone. Being and thinking like an anthropologist comes with the territory of being human. We cannot escape it.

"Humans are amazing and dynamic and weird and live these amazing lives, and we introduce our students to small aspects of that. If they can just take something from that and use it in whatever their profession is, that's my goal."

Wolfe grew up 20 minutes from the beach in Milford, Delaware, describing it as "slow-living, small-town life." While attending Dickinson College, he found his passion.

"I was a fan of history, but I wanted a more applied side as opposed to reading a bunch of history books," he said. "My freshman year, I took a class in introduction to biological anthropology, and it was exactly what I wanted to do."

He graduated with degrees in anthropology and archeology, obtained a master's in anthropology at Texas State and then a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Nevada-Reno.

He knew he wanted to teach forensic anthropology to undergraduate and graduate students while conducting research. He found that at ECU, interviewing on a cold and wet day in February 2023.

"Everyone was welcoming and supportive," he said. "Oftentimes as a junior faculty member coming in, there is this sense of you are down here and we are up here. I never felt that at ECU. I felt like I could be somebody here and not just be some person to push out a publication and then move on. That made it feel comfortable when I got here. It's been nice."

In the introduction to anthropology course he teaches, Wolfe pulls from his own family to illustrate the interesting facets of the social science.

"I'm 6-foot-4. My twin (brother) is 6-foot-3, but our youngest brother doesn't break 6 feet," he said. "I turn to my class and ask, 'How does this make sense? We eat the same things, we're from the same parents, we grew up in the same house and played sports in the same high school, so how can he be so small?'"

It's these types of variations in humans and societies - not only in our present but in our past - that Wolfe champions with his students.

"Instead of thinking that variation is something that should set us apart in a bad way, it's something that should be embraced and then addressed to not only talk about who we are today but then where we come from," he said. "I think biological anthropology is this long view study of what it means to vary in the best sense possible."

With his background in forensic anthropology, Wolfe consults with the medical examiner for the Eastern Regional Autopsy Center in Greenville. He is brought in routinely when skeletal remains are discovered.

"My biggest interest is how can I best take this skeleton and say something about it," he said.

In 2024, Wolfe and his graduate students helped solve a 42-year-old mystery after a car was found submerged in Jack's Creek near Washington. The vehicle was linked to the disappearance of three men in 1982, and Wolfe and his students retrieved skeletal remains from the site, noting the bones came from three individuals.

"I think the students got from that experience what it's really like to work a scene from beginning to end in the unpredictable environments that are there," he said. "The press was out there and the family was out there, which is not normal, but the students were great. They were phenomenal. They were professional. They treated everything with the utmost care. The questions that the press and the family had, they dealt with in a manner that was above reproach, and I could not have been happier with how it went. It was a good experience, and it was fulfilling for the family."

Beyond work, Wolfe enjoys time in the mountains with his wife, Rachel Provazza.

"There's just something about that lifestyle, the serenity of it, the ability to escape what I'm doing and just get lost," he said. "Don't get me wrong: I love the water and have taken advantage of it here, but any chance I get, I try to escape back to the mountains."

For both work and pleasure, Wolfe has traveled extensively - Italy, Germany, Cyprus and Australia to name a few. He calls one spot his favorite.

"Lake Wānaka, just outside of Queenstown, New Zealand, is probably my favorite place I've been to," he said. "When I was an undergrad student, I studied abroad in Australia for seven months, and I spent just over two weeks in New Zealand. We were in a camper van and stopped where we wanted and ate what we wanted, and I would go back in a heartbeat."

It's that curiosity of other parts of the world and of past and present societies that drives Wolfe, and he hopes, drives his students as well.

"I want them to find something that makes them curious, that makes them think," he said. "It doesn't have to be something that is their career, but it has to be something that drives them and keeps pushing them forward, something that gives them a reason to decide what they're going to do next."