Viljami Vetenoja (aka Bill Wedenoja) lived in Washington, Oregon, California, New York, Michigan, and Ontario before graduating from high school in Huntsville, Alabama.  He attended the University of Alabama and received a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Oregon, where he was selected for Phi Beta Kappa.  His M.A. and Ph.D. are from the University of California at San Diego, where he focused on psychological and psychiatric anthropology.

Dr. Wedenoja has been conducting fieldwork in Jamaica since 1972, and has published articles on Jamaican society, indigenous religion, traditional healing, pentecostalism, mental illness, trance and possession, unconscious motivation, and gender.  He was involved in a multidisciplinary project on the teaching of Ozarks Studies from 1980-1984 and co-authored two articles and a book on multicultural education.  His most recent publications are on pentecostalism and gender in Jamaica and transcultural psychiatry.  In 1990 he received an Excellence in Research award from the Missouri State University Foundation.

In recent years, Dr. Wedenoja has been taking students to Jamaica to learn about the country through living and travel, to gain first-hand experience in ethnographic fieldwork, and to provide service to a local community.

Dr. Wedenoja taught at Southwestern College, Miramar College, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of California at San Diego before joining the Missouri State faculty in 1979.  He is coordinator of the anthropology program and is currently teaching ANT 100 World Cultures, ANT 226 Cultural Anthropology, ANT 301 Anthropology of Religion, ANT 302 Psychological Anthropology, ANT 320 Ethnography, ANT 331 Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean, and ANT 595 History of Anthropological Theory.