Nunalleq 2015 – photo by Sven Haakanson

Hello, my name is Justin McCarthy.  I am of Yup’ik and Sámi with roots going back to Bethel and Crooked Creek, Alaska.  I am a second year PhD student in ethnoarchaeology here at UW.  I have spent the last 8 years working with over 120 Indigenous communities at the Burke Museum.

I maintain close ties with communities in Alaska and with Plateau people in Eastern Washington.  I have spent a couple summers working at the Nunalleq site in Quinhagak, Alaska.  I have traveled to many museums across the United States and Canada to research Yup’ik objects.  In my spare time I like to carve and do beadwork.