Phillip J. Wanyerka

Interim Director, K'inal Winik Cuultural Center
Visiting Instructor, Department of Anthropology
Co-PI & Project Epighrapher, Uxbenká Archaeological Project

Phillip J. Wanyerka, Interim Director of the KWCC and Visiting Instructor in the Department of Anthropology, along with two colleagues (Dr. Keith M. Prufer, Wichita State University and Dr. Andrew W. Kindon, West valley College) were recently awarded a research grant ($123,838) from the National Science Foundation to continue their archaeological investigations at Uxbenká, a Classic Maya site located in the Toledo District of southern Belize.

Wanyerka attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where he specialized in Classic Maya writing and language. He has spent the past 20 years researching and exploring Mesoamerica . Wanyerka is widely published and is considered the leading scholar on the hieroglyphic inscriptions of southern Belize .

Wanyerka has been teaching in the Department of Anthropology at CSU since 2002 where he has taught a variety of course including: Maya Hieroglyphic Writing I & II; Ancient Civilizations of the Americas; Cultural Anthropology; Ohio Prehistory” The Archaeology of Early Writing Systems; Language, Society & Culture; and the Peoples and Cultures of Mesoamerica.