Over the summer, several SLU Anthropology majors took part in various internships and research opportunities.
From May 30, 2023 to June 2, 2023, Zoie Lehman ‘24 completed 35 hours of fieldwork at the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center. During this short course, Zoie was trained in the various techniques of anthropological field methods, such as mapping, excavating, and inventorying two individual donors. She was additionally taught how to apply knowledge of decomposition, osteology, pathology, and post-mortem interval.
From June 10, 2023 to July 26, 2023, Zoie also completed a 7 week internship at the Lewis County Public Health Agency. During this internship, Zoie was responsible for reviewing and compiling death, communicable disease, and Early Intervention (children with special needs) data. She also gathered specific epidemiological data to use for reporting, such as the number of cases occurring per year, percent gender distribution, age distribution in years, cause of death distribution, category of death distribution, International Classification of Disease (ICD) 10 code distributions, and township/zip code via address distributions. Using such data, Zoie created various bar and line graphs via Excel, as well as two Geographic Information System (GIS) maps for Lead Prevention and Early Intervention purposes. Zoie additionally was a member of the Health and Social Marketing Committee and tabled for Lyme Disease and Rabies prevention at the 2023 Lewis County Fair.
This past summer, Marika Stauring ‘24 conducted bioarchaeological research as a SLU Fellow under the direction and supervision of Dr. Mindy Pitre. The purpose of her project was to analyze and digitize all information pertaining to the Tell Leilan human skeletal assemblage from ancient Syria curated at St. Lawrence University. Marika conducted an osteobiographical analysis on each set of remains to estimate skeletal sex, age, stature, genetic ancestry, and pathology. She also photographed the skeletal remains and digitized all associated contextual information. All of this information has been uploaded into a digital database. This assemblage of information provides not only an analysis of the remains themselves, but also a history of the studies conducted on these remains, and the institutions between which they’ve been transported.
This summer Edward Habeck ’24 extracted bacterial DNA from ancient dental plaque as part of his SLU fellowship project entitled “Human Oral Microbiome Observed in Bronze Age Skeletal Remains from the site of Tell Leilan from ancient Mesopotamia.” Under the supervision of Dr. Lorraine Olendzenski and working with Dr. Pitre, Edward sought to reveal the microbial composition of the ancient plaque from select individuals to better understand the relationships between humans and microorganisms throughout history.
Adri Nothnagle ’24 interned at the Orange County Office of the Medical Examiner in NY state as an Autopsy Assistant Intern. She helped the pathologists and technicians with body cleanup, photographs, documentation, retrieval of personal items, and preparing histology cassettes and toxicology tests. Her internship helped reinforce what she learned from taking Dr. Pitre’s ANTH 365 Forensic Anthropology course.
