Frederica de Laguna

Who was Frederica de Laguna?

Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and archaeologist influential for her work on Paleoindian and Alaska Native art and archaeology in the American northwest and Alaska.

She founded and chaired the anthropology department at Bryn Mawr College from 1938 to 1972 and served as vice-president of the Society for American Archaeology from 1949 to 1950 and as president of the American Anthropological Association from 1966 to 1967. de Laguna's honors include Bryn Mawr College's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1972; her election into the National Academy of Sciences as the first woman, with former classmate Margaret Mead, in 1976; the Distinguished Service Award from the AAA in 1986; a potlatch from the people of Yakutat in 1996; and the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999.