Obituary: Linda Cordell

Linda Cordell, Ph.D., a former director of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, died March 29, 2013.  She was 69.

She earned her bachelor’s degree at George Washington University, her master’s at the University of Oregon, and her doctorate at the University of California Santa Barbara. She taught at the University of New Mexico from 1971-87 as an assistant, associate and full professor and served a term as chair of the Department of Anthropology. She then spent four years at the California Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco, as Irvine Curator and Chair of the Department of Anthropology.

In 1992, Cordell joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder as director of the University of Colorado Museum, a comprehensive natural history museum, and professor of anthropology. She served at CU-Boulder until June 2005, and holds emeritus status in the Department of Anthropology and at the museum.

More recently, she was a senior scholar at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, N.M., and was appointed to the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute in 2010; she was a keynote speaker at their Spring Science Council Meeting in April 2011.

Throughout her career, Linda has enjoyed teaching undergraduate and graduate students, directing archaeological field schools, developing museum exhibitions, and conducting collaborative research.