Angela Garcia, anthropology assistant professor, has been awarded the Stirling Prize for Best Published Work in Psychological Anthropology by the Society for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. The award recognizes her study, "The Elegiac Addict: History, Chronicity, and the Melancholic Subject," in which she took an in-depth look at drug addiction and its root causes in the rural New Mexican landscape. Her findings, based upon five years of interviews, surveys and anthropological research in the area, indicated a strong tie between elevated levels of heroin use and the local Hispanos' lost connections to the land and historical culture. The study was published in the November 2008 issue of the society's journal, Cultural Anthropology.  
 
Garcia will formally receive the award at the 2009 American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Philadelphia in December. Past recipients of the honor have included noted anthropologists from Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, the Watson Institute, and UC Irvine.