Laura Putsche is an assistant professor of anthropology.  Her areas of interest are indigenous peoples of South America (particularly of the Amazon region), indigenous peoples and the state, cultural ecology, and indigenous peoples and international development.  Her research has focused on how reduced access to natural resources has impacted a group of Shipibo in the Peruvian Amazon and efforts by indigenous peoples to organize themselves to protect their land and culture.  She has also worked with mentoring programs on campus to help ensure that they are meeting students' needs.

• Putsche, Laura, Debbie Storrs, Alicia Lewis, and Jennifer Haylett, 2008, "The Development of a Mentoring Program for University Undergraduate Women," Cambridge Journal of Education, 8(4):513-528.
• Storrs, Debbie, Laura Putsche, and Amy Taylor, 2008, "Mentoring Expectations and Realities:  An analysis of metaphorical thinking among female undergraduate proteges and their mentors in a university mentoring program," Mentoring and Tutoring, 16(2):175-188.
• Putsche, Laura, 2000, "A Reassessment of Resource Depletion, Market Dependency, and Culture Change on a Shipibo Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon," Human Ecology, 28:131-140.
• Putsche, Laura, 1997, "The Dynamics of State Expansion and Indian Resistance in Brazil, in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender:  A global perspective, Samuel Oliner and Philip Gay (eds), pp. 179-195, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
• Putsche, Laura, 1993, "Changes in Frontier Development and the New Indian Resistance in Brazil, "Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 19(2):131-156. 

• Historia de costumbres de nuestros antepasados.  Collection of Shipibo myths and songs for use by the Shipibo of the Peruvian Amazon in their cultural preservation efforts;  ongoing project