Atmore native Kelly Fayard was recently appointed as the director of the Native American Cultural Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Fayard will begin her new job July 27, and will also hold the title of assistant dean.

Fayard, currently an assistant professor of anthropology at Bowdoin College in Maine, has served as an academic adviser to students for four years, and is also Bowdoin’s faculty representative for the Native American Student Association.

She has also served on Bowdoin’s Advisory Committee for a Diverse Community, which seeks to diversify the college’s student body and faculty. Since last year, she has been a member of Bowdoin’s Curriculum and Education Policy Committee, which decides tenure lines and programming for the college.

Fayard earned her Ph.D., in anthropology, and a certificate in museum studies from the University of Michigan, and she earned her B.A., in cultural anthropology and religion, from Duke. She is an enrolled member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.