Julie Fleischman was awarded a Fulbright IIE to conduct her dissertation research on Khmer Rouge regime violence by analyzing skeletal trauma and memorialization in Cambodia.

Mari Isa was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to investigate the relationship between developmental changes in bone structure and the expression of long bone fracture.

Sabrina Perlman was awarded a Fulbright IIE to conduct her dissertation research on the gender dynamics of self-managing type 2 diabetes in Ghana.

Fayana Richards was awarded a Pen to Paper Writing Retreat Travel Grant (Writing With, For and About Service-and Community-Engagement), a National Women’s Studies Association Travel Grant, a National Institute on Aging Summer Training on African American Aging Research Fellowship, and the MSU Pearl J. Aldrich Graduate Aging Research Award.

Emily Riley was runner up in the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) Graduate Student Paper Prize, for her paper “The Politics of Téranga: Gender, Power, and the Political Equality Movement in Senegal.”

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

James Bielo (2007) was promoted from Lecturer to Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University. He has recently published an introductory text for anthropology of religion courses (Anthropology of Religion: The Basics) and launched an interactive online curation of biblical entertainment sites, the first of its kind: http://www.materializingthebible.com

Linda Dwyer (1999) spent the last six years working as a full-time lecturer at Salisbury University, Maryland, teaching Cultural Anthropology and Chinese language courses while mentoring student projects. She spent summers teaching and conducting research in Anqing City, China, and presented this research at the 44th Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies (MARAAS) conference in Pittsburgh this past fall. She’s currently focused on writing.

Kari (Bergstrom) Henquinet (2007) is Senior Lecturer for the Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Tech and is directing two campuswide programs: Peace Corps Master’s International (the largest Master’s International campus in the nation) and Peace Corps Prep in the Honors College for undergraduates.

Lindsey Jenny (2011) was promoted to Assistant Professor in the MSU Division of Human Anatomy in 2013, and is working with colleagues to revise the curriculum for medical education. She is also the director of the course Human Gross Anatomy for Prehealth Professionals.

Mary Ann Ladia (2008) is a Researcher at the Institute of Clinical Epidemiology at National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila. She works with an interdisciplinary team on universal health care, access to medicine, child health and nutrition, and protection of children from online abuse and exploitation. Her major research for the year 2016 will be the national TB prevalence survey. She also coteaches a graduate course on Clinical Economics and Health Social Science.

Melissa Rinehart (2006) currently serves as Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Visiting Nurse (a healthcare agency) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In addition to diversity management responsibilities, she supports and educates clinicians about language and cultural sensitivity and the importance of inclusion. She also is actively writing, publishing and presenting her research.

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

The Provost Undergraduate Research Initiative (PURI) provides funding for undergraduates to work closely with a faculty member on a major research project that forms part of the faculty member’s own initiatives. The Department of Anthropology usually receives several PURI grants each year. Jonah Stone and Dr. Masako Fujita were awarded one of Anthropology’s PURIs for Summer 2015 to test iron status in dried blood spots. Jonah describes their work, and his role in it:

“I have always been interested in how humans function, both biologically and socially. I think this is what led me to physical anthropology in the first place. I found a home in both biology and anthropology, investigating how the body changes and is changed by the environment around it. My research in the Biomarker Laboratory for Anthropology Research allows me to pursue this interest by investigating the way nutrition has an effect on how the body works. My work with Dr. Fujita focuses on iron status in dried blood samples collected from northern Kenyan women during a drought. These samples were collected nine years prior to our study being conducted, and it was unclear whether or not the protein used for identifying iron status (transferrin receptor protein) would be stable considering the great amount of time the samples spent in deep freeze. My research entails testing the samples for this protein using an ELISA kit (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) which utilizes antibodies to induce a color change in samples containing the intact protein. I ran the transferrin receptor protein ELISA and compared results with hemoglobin values that were assessed at the time of original blood collection. The research took about two months to complete, and I submitted an abstract about my work to the 2016 Human Biology Association meeting. By determining how the protein holds up over time, it is my hope that we can further research into the applicability of dried blood spot assay technology and contribute to studies on nutrition and iron deficiency anemia in Kenyan rural communities.

Through human biology research like that done in Dr. Fujita’s lab, more can be understood about how the human body functions when exposed to environments where there is less food or fewer opportunities for maintaining healthy nutrient levels. This understanding can help governments and organizations formulate decisions regarding public welfare and help those in need. In the future, I want to continue to do work on how the environment changes the human body, but in the realm of skeletal biology and drawing on forensics. I am fascinated by the histology and biochemistry of bones and how different stresses, whether they are nutritional or otherwise, change the morphology of the different structures in the human skeleton.

It is my hope that I can combine human biology with forensic osteology research to create a happy medium between the two. What I have learned through Dr. Fujita’s guidance has given me a unique perspective on how I can best use my degree and experience: I can use it to further understanding of how the body is changed by the world around it.”

Images, top to bottom: Jonah Stone while on Study Abroad in England; Test tubes containing eluates (solution obtained from eluting dried blood spots in a buffer) for use later in the assay procedure

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

Dr. Isabel Montemayor (Ph.D. 2014) began her first semester as Assistant Professor of Anthropology this fall at University of Texas, Arlington. Her appointment is in the joint department of Anthropology and Sociology, but also includes appointment as Faculty Research Associate with the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS). Her teaching responsibility includes classes on Medical Anthropology, Latino Health Issues and Global Cultures, but her primary role at the university is research. Dr. Montemayor was excited to join a university with a strategic plan for “Health and the Human Condition” and a strong focus on Hispanic populations, where she would be supported in her pursuit of an active research agenda while teaching smaller-sized classes in her specialty.

Currently, Dr. Montemayor continues the research she began with the Michigan Public Health Institute assessing Medicaid expansion throughout the state of Michigan. Following the completion of this project, she plans to launch a new research project building off of her dissertation, which looked at the intersection of immigration and healthcare policies and their effects on transnational Latino immigrants. While her dissertation focused on urban lives, she will be expanding this focus to address the impacts on rural populations, especially dairy workers. One of Dr. Montemayor’s long-term goals with her research is to change the widespread societal perception that undocumented Mexicans living in the US are a burden, instead showing that they are productive and necessary contributors to society.

While at MSU, Dr. Montemayor was very involved with AGEP (The Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) and took advantage of the opportunities provided by the Graduate School to meet with faculty and other minority scholars. Through the opportunities provided at MSU Dr. Montemayor visited NSF headquarters, attended conferences on diversity, and also received the King-Chavez-Parks Future Faculty Fellowship. These experiences furthered her resolve to become a professor. “Those experiences molded me into the researcher and educator I am today,” she explains.

Also important to her development as a scholar were her relationships to faculty she admired and could rely upon for advice. She’s been staying in touch with her mentors in the Department of Anthropology, including Dr. Linda Hunt and Dr. Heather Howard, and they continue to be important sources of guidance on how to be an educator and researcher. “While I was writing my dissertation, our relationship focused on that. But now I consult with them as colleagues and they give me advice,” she says. As a teacher and mentor herself now, she is looking forward to supporting young scholars from disadvantaged backgrounds realize their academic goals. She’s hoping to get involved with the McNair scholars program, as she was a participant herself, and make her research open to collaboration with undergraduates.  

Images, top to bottom: Dr. Isabel Montemayor; Dr. Montemayor (second from left) with the members of the migrant hometown association

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

Dr. Jennifer Bengtson (Ph.D. 2012) has settled in as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University. She tells us about her current endeavors teaching and researching Mississippian Culture:

What attracted you to your current position?

I feel like I landed my dream job. I have always envisioned myself working at a small, undergraduatefocused institution. I enjoy the autonomy I have in setting up my lab and building a bioculturally focused archaeology program. The first two years were really difficult as I worked through the course rotation for the first time. But now that I have gotten into a teaching groove, I am able to focus more on continuing research with MSU colleagues and building new relationships with other archaeologists working in the region. One of the major perks of this position is that there is a Mississippian village site located about a ten minute drive from campus. The owner of the land on which the site is located provides us with both unlimited access and financial support. I am excited for the potential of this site to contribute to our understanding of regional social processes, and I am particularly interested in exploring ceramic provenance to understand how it fits into the broader Mississippian cultural landscape.

What is your current research on?

Most of my recent work has been focused on contributions to the ongoing Morton Village Archaeological Project with Dr. O’Gorman. We have an article on childhood and mortuary representation in press, and are about to submit two more articles relating to gender as it relates to community building processes and the experience of violence.

On the osteology side, I have begun to revisit some of the forensics work that first attracted me to the field. Current MSU Ph.D. candidate Amy Michael and I are working on a project related to the affects of chronic alcohol consumption on bone remodeling processes, while here at Southeast I am working with a forensic chemist to develop a non-destructive method using Raman Spectroscopy to distinguish human remains of medico-legal significance from those of archaeological significance.

All my MSU mentors have continued to be great. I interact with Dr. Sauer, even though he is retired, as I get further into forensics. Dr. O’Gorman and I work together a lot. And Dr. Goldstein continues to provide her mentorship and access to her vast knowledge of the Mississippian tradition. I would not be the teacher and researcher I am today without them and all of the other professors I worked with over my years at MSU.

What was most valuable to you from your graduate study at MSU?

I think it was the balance struck between curricular structure and flexibility. I got all of the foundational knowledge I needed in core classes, while also being encouraged by my committee to construct my own anthropological identity through more personalized lab, classroom, and field experiences. I came out of it all with one foot planted firmly in archaeology, and the other planted firmly in biological anthropology.

What impact do you hope to have in the long term?

I have a great group of students here at Southeast. I am excited to arm them with the best, most holistic anthropological education I can, and then send them off into the world to see what they do with it!

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

Dr. Marcy O’Neil became an adjunct for Anthropology shortly after earning her degree from the department in 2012, and this led to her current position as Advisor for Peace and Justice Studies. She now regularly teaches its core course, ANP 336, as well as other classes in Anthropology and ISS. Dr. O’Neil particularly loves working with the Peace and Justice students, who continue to impress her with their enthusiasm. “They’re not satisfied with the world as it is,” she says. “All want to find ways to make a change.”

Applying anthropology to solve real-world problems is what motivated Dr. O’Neil to pursue a Ph.D. herself, and this has influenced her pedagogy. In the classroom, she teaches every student to think about their daily choices and how these link to events and people elsewhere. Her class assignments encourage students to see their potential impact in the world in hopeful terms, rather than discouraged ones. In one project, students pick an issue in international politics and identify who is working on the problem around the world– academics, practitioners, and international institutions–and show how these different sets of actors are connected and interdependent. Then, she asks students where they see themselves within this network of change agents. Several former students of hers have gone on to build careers working for organizations they identified through this project.

Dr. O’Neil is a member of the US Embassy in Cotonou’s Extended Working Group on Entrepreneurship, and participates in business plan development in Benin as part of a joint project between MSU, the Embassy, and Youth Entrepreneurs Partners in Benin. She is also a co-founder of Trois Soeurs, a social entrepreneurship (a low profit, high social impact business). She and her business partners work with artisans in West Africa (Benin and Togo) to import accessories to the US where they can be sold to fund tutoring for Benin children with illiterate parents. The idea for Trois Soeurs emerged from observations Dr. O’Neil made while doing her dissertation research on access to education and impacts on the family in Benin. She saw children from lower socioeconomic status households struggle as they entered secondary school and faced harder coursework. Trois Soeurs provides tutoring during this critical time so that  disadvantaged students are successful in their studies. The business side of Trois Soeurs addresses a different problem: skilled artisans in West African have difficulty reaching the markets where their goods have higher value. Trois Soeurs brings these goods to the US to sell so artisans benefit from higher profits.

Over the next few years, Dr. O’Neil hopes to see a high percentage of Trois Soeurs-sponsored students graduating high school and entering the university. She plans to continue to teach for MSU, and looks forward to teaching ANP 439 (Human Rights: Anthropological Perspectives), which will coordinate with Dr. Elizabeth Drexler’s course this spring. Dr. Drexler is currently on a Fulbright in Indonesia and the two will develop a digital project which will allow their students to work together, enriching the learning potential for both classes.

Images, top to bottom: Dr. O’Neil at an entrepreneurship meeting in Benin; Dr. O’Neil with Trois Soeurs Co-founder

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

Jessica Yann, a PhD candidate focusing on historical archaeology, received the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies Graduate Student Fellowship this year to support the archival portion of her research. Jessica’s research centers around Native Americans’ use of trade goods in the 18th Century Midwestern U.S., including what goods they were buying, and who they were buying from. To document the networks of trade that Native Americans helped create, Jessica is researching both archaeological collections and historical archives.

Because she is focusing on the 18th century, documents kept by Europeans provide an important source of data for her project. Letters and account books from the time period testify to the back-andforth of goods needed and ordered. The Newberry Library had materials she was particularly interested in, such as the Ayer collection which includes a variety of documents on Native Americans during the time period. The collection includes letters back and forth among members of trade companies and to US government offices discussing how Indian trade should be handled. The Newberry Fellowship supported her research in Chicago this past summer, including one month in residency at the library, full fellow status and priority access to materials, costs associated with the library, and a stipend to live in Chicago.

Jessica has also analyzed existing archaeological collections of Native American sites this past year, some of which have been minimally studied. The archaeological record revealed what items Native Americans were choosing in trade–or not. “You have people making decisions that aren’t always expected, and adapting to lots of new circumstances,” she explains. Her research will show the ways that Native Americans made decisions that benefitted them, sometimes in ways that have not been clear to scholars. She’s hoping to help demonstrate that notions of dependency that many have about Native Americans, especially during 18 century, are misguided. Native Americans were exercising agency in complex ways and making strategic choices.

In addition to her dissertation research, Jessica teaches Introduction to Archaeology (ANP 203) and is working part time for the Michigan State Archaeologist’s office. She’s a lead organizer for this year’s Archaeology Day on October 10. As she finishes up her data analysis, Jessica will begin presenting her findings this year, first at the Midwest Archaeological Conference in November, and then at the Society for American Archaeology in April 2016.

Images, top to bottom: Jessica Yann; A letter written by John Jacob Astor

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

The first session of the Institute for Digital Archaeological Method & Practice was held successfully at MSU August 17 through 22, thanks to a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Organized by Michigan State University’s Department of Anthropology and MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, this two-year institute is training 32 archaeologists and students in critical digital skills and technologies. The goal of the institute is to build capacity beyond the typical digital tools used by archaeologist (such as databases and GIS) to strengthen innovation in how archaeology is taught, researched, and disseminated to the public.

Participants hailed from a wide range of sectors, including national parks, private cultural resource management firms, academic programs, and museums. This first session provided participants with hands-on instruction and experimentation in a wide variety of critical digital technologies such as digital project management, linked open data, web mapping, and augmented reality. At the end of the 6 days of workshops and lectures, each participant envisioned and pitched a project which they will further develop and build over this year at  their home institutions, with ongoing mentorship from the institute faculty. “The projects (all) represent an exciting trend in archaeology – integrating digital methods into the core practices of archaeological research, scholarly communication, outreach, and engagement,” says Dr. Ethan Watrall, who is co-Director of the Institute with Dr. Lynne Goldstein.

During this academic year, participants will post to the Institute’s website (digitalarchaeology.msu.edu) with updates on their project’s progress. Next summer’s meeting will allow them to refine their plans, attend sessions on other topics (such as sustaining digital archaeology projects, copyright, and intellectual property) and then launch their projects at the end of the Institute. The directors will also be launching an online community that will continue the mission of supporting digital archaeology into the future.

Images, top to bottom: Participants at the conference, with Dr. Lynne Goldstein presenting; Dr. Ethan Watrall addresses the participants

This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.