Anthropology is the study of human diversity from the Paleolithic to the present, how humans form and think about communities, how they make a living, impact the environment, communicate, and express themselves in art, religion, language, and in practical activities. Anthropological study is comparative and wholistic; students learn to integrate diverse kinds of information — environmental, economic, political, social, expressive — into composite pictures of human social life and cultures. Anthropology is where the natural and social sciences meet.

Some anthropologists excavate and study material remains of past societies, others do "up-close and personal" research with living people where they live and work, on their thoughts and feelings, beliefs, recreation, material stuff and everyday lives. Anthropology also includes the study of human evolution and of linguistics, from the dialects that mark communities to how we do things with words.

Anthropologists at Catholic University work in Latin America, the Middle East, and the USA. We study problems of identity and community, experiences of refugees and migrants, the "food chain" from field to table, environmental impacts of human activities, technology and the information revolution, contemporary globalization, ancient art and architecture, and varieties of religious experience and representation.