From collaborative research to awards and scholarships, students in DDHR are engaged in work that will make an impact in the field of anthropology.
Students Work with Archeological Research Lab to Return Remains
Students studying biological anthropology are working on preparing the Native American collections housed at UT to be returned to their affiliated tribes in accordance with NAGPRA. These collections, such as the Arikara, which has been extensively studied, were originally excavated in the 1960s and 70s by Professor Emeritus William Bass and include over 1,000 individual human remains along with associated funerary objects.
The collection is currently housed at the Archeological Research Lab. Some samples have been sent to other institutions for research, but Curation Manager Ellen Lofaro has worked on retrieving them, and the students are integrating them back into the collection. The goal is to arrange these remains respectfully so that they can all be delivered to their tribes with dignity.
Student Awards and Scholarships
Esther Choo received the Fulbright Study/Research Award to South Korea. Her research project is titled the “Analysis of Skeletal Remains of Soldiers Killed during the Korean War” and focuses on both biological and socio-cultural anthropology research on the Korean War and its victims.
Wilfred Komakech received a McClure Scholarship to conduct research in his home country of Uganda this past summer.
Krista Billingsley spent all of 2016 in Nepal working on her dissertation. Read her story, published in her local paper