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Portrait of Joanna Cohan Scherer, Curator VersionJOANNA COHAN SCHERER, Emeritus Anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution has authored several books including A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), Edward Sheriff Curtis (Phaidon Press, 2008) and Life among the Indians: First Fieldwork among the Sioux and Omahas by Alice C. Fletcher, Ed. and with an Introduction by Joanna C. Scherer and Raymond J. DeMallie (University of Nebraska Press, 2013) as well as articles in Cultural Anthropology, Arctic Anthropology, Visual Anthropology, and Visual Anthropology Review. Joanna is an active member of the Society of Visual Anthropology (SVA), a unit of the American Anthropological Association, including past president. She is currently the Historian of SVA and active on the Lifetime Achievement Award Committee and the Committee for John Collier, Jr. Award for Still Photography.

Joanna was the Illustrations Researcher for the Handbook of North American Indians from 1970 through 2006 where she created a large collection of historical photographs relating to Native Americans. The Handbook of North American Indians series under the general editorship of William C. Sturtevant published 15 of its 20 proposed volumes from 1978-2008. They include: California (1978), Northeast (1978), Southwest/Pueblo (1979), Subarctic (1981), Southwest/non-Pueblo (1983), Arctic (1984). Great Basin (1986), History of Indian-White Relations (1988), Northwest Coast (1990), Languages (1996), Plateau (1998), Plains (2001), Southeast (2004), Environment, Origins and Population (2006) and Indians in Contemporary Society (2008). The Handbook project was terminated in December 2007. An Introduction volume intended as part of the Handbook series but not published by 2008 is currently being edited by Igor Krupnik, Department of Anthropology and will include a history of the project as well as updates on research in the various culture areas and on new fields of the 21st century studies that have not been covered in the published volumes. The proposed publication date is 2020.

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