Guido Pezzarossi, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Anthropology Department, has received this year’s award from the Ralph E. Montonna Endowed Fund for the Teaching and Education of Undergraduates.

Awarded by the Maxwell School, the Ralph E. Montonna Endowed Fund is intended to support a professor with notable engagement in undergraduate education. Pezzarossi is the recipient of the fund award for the 2025-26 academic year. He succeeds Lamis Abdelaaty, assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Political Science Department.

“I’m thrilled to see him receive this well-deserved recognition,” says Carol Faulkner, senior associate dean for academic affairs. “He is an effective and engaging instructor in both large and small classes and he always goes above and beyond for our students.”

Pezzarossi is director of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean and an affiliated faculty member in Native American and Indigenous Studies as well as its undergraduate director. His areas of expertise are in archaeology of colonialism, historical anthropology, postcolonial theory, new materialism and archaeology of food. He has taught courses on ancient and modern Maya, and biological, cultural and sensory anthropology.

Pezzarossi’s research and writing uses archaeology to better understand the entanglements between colonialism and capitalism in the early New World and explore the wide variety of influences, motivations and causes that drive colonial encounters. His work has been supported by organizations including the Women's Rights National Historical Park and the National Science Foundation as well as Maxwell’s SOURCE Undergraduate Research Assistant Grant, the Collaboration for Unprecedented Success and Excellence (CUSE) Grant Program and the Appleby-Mosher Fund. In 2019, he received both the Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award and Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research, which recognizes an outstanding record of teaching, research and service.

The Dr. Ralph E. Montonna Endowed Fund for the Teaching and Education of Undergraduates was created with a donation from the honoree’s daughter, the late Mary Lou Williams ’50 B.A. (AmSt). Montonna earned a B.S. in chemistry from Syracuse University in 1916 and later earned a Ph.D. from Yale University. In 1946, he was named director of research at Syracuse University. He died in 1952.

By Michael Kelly