About 80 percent of the approximately 7,000 anthropologists in the United States are employed in colleges and universities. They teach undergraduate students the four branches of anthropology. Other Anthropologists head projects funded by foundations, grant agencies, nonprofit associations, and the private sector. The federal government employs anthropologists in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Public Health Service.
Some physical anthropologists work in medical schools.
Others work in community and regional development and planning, and a few work in forensics labs helping to solve crimes.