Cynthia Bradbury

Bio

Cynthia Bradbury served as an adjunct instructor with the department from 2011 until her passing in 2016. Learning and teaching sciences were Bradbury’s lifelong passion. She focused that passion on the conservation of wild primates. Leading a service-learning lab at Zoo Boise that developed puzzles and other items for enriching the lives of primate species there. Students enjoyed Cynthia’s service-learning classes and her work helped create connections between Boise State and the zoo.

Bradbury came to the discipline of anthropology in 2009 after a long career at Micron. Prior to that, she earned a master’s in applied physics from Old Dominion University and completed her graduate work at NASA Langley on space station structural materials.

In 2011, Bradbury received the Claude C. Albritton Award from the Archaeological Geology Division of the Geological Society of America. This prestigious award is given to graduate students in the earth sciences or field of archaeology for research. It provided support for her master’s thesis study of the isotope geochemistry of fossils from Paleolithic sites in Saharan North Africa. After she completed her master’s in anthropology in 2011, she retired from Micron.

A quintessential lifelong learner, Bradbury completed an extensive list of professional development workshops offered through the Center for Teaching and Learning, Service-Learning, and eCampus. As both a teacher and a student, she touched the lives of many people across campus.

In addition to teaching, Bradbury kept her hand in research activities after completing her thesis. She worked with Mark Plew on isotopic research and co-authored a number of papers and conference presentations.

“She was one of the best collaborators I have ever worked with – always to detail and ever engaging,” Plew said.

Scholarship

Cynthia’s legacy continues on in the Anthropology Department through the Cynthia A Lenahan Bradbury Anthropology Scholarship.