Profile

As a member of Rising Star Expedition, I’m one of six “underground astronauts” to slither down a tiny rock opening in a dangerous African cave in order to carefully dig up ancient fossils belonging to a newly discovered human ancestor! Once in the Rising Star fossil chamber, we used an Artec white light strobe laser scanner to scan the cave floor as we excavated (If you saw the movie, “Prometheus,” the “pups” are very similar, except our scanner doesn’t fly. Yet.).  Normally, this process can take a long time as you have to take careful depth measurements and map the position of bones or artifacts by hand. Archaeologists do this because the act of excavation also destroys a physical site. Our detailed measurements and maps allow us to recreate the site so that we can give context to the items we remove. A bone or an artifact without this context (or information on its position, depth, origin, etc.) is not as useful to science. Our 3D laser scans allow us to recreate the site in greater detail than ever before, such that we can even “re-dig” the site digitally from any angle! Added to these scans are detailed notes and forensic camera photos that have microscopic resolution so that no information is left behind!

For my PhD research, I studied the shape of individual ribs using a 3D  contact digitizer called a MicroScribe G2. This allowed me to make digital wireframe (fancy looking connect the dots) models of each rib that I could then compare to others. By using a Procrustes analysis (named after a mythological giant that stretched or cut up people to fit his bed), I torture the data until it removes all other information but pure shape. This can be a useful way to compare things when you have reason to believe that some observed differences are really a result of size.

At Sepela Field Programs (http://www.sepela.org/?page_id=484), I am currently working on devising ways for humans and wildlife (particularly non-human primates) to live together peacefully without trouble. I’m a nosey person by nature, so being able to speak with lots of different people and spy on animals is right up my alley! Best of all, if this is something that interests you, you can apply to our field courses, and try this kind of applied science on for size!

Biological anthropology suits me perfectly because there are so very many ways that you can approach your research. I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which means that I can sometimes get lost in my thoughts or find it hard to focus, and get sidetracked easily (SQUIRREL!!!). Also, when I get really excited about something, I can get very emotional (sometimes even when I’m really happy, I’ll start crying for no reason–I did this when we saw the first 3D scans of the cave floor in Rising Star Expedition, and I was SO embarrassed), or I’ll get really wound up and start bouncing off the walls. This doesn’t really sound like your typical image of a scientist, but I’m making it work for me.  

My research has brought me to five continents, and lots of exciting different countries! I’ve worked on the following collections of bones and fossils: UI-Stanford Collection (Office of the State Archaeologist, Iowa City), Point Hope Collection (American Museum of Natural History, NYC), Shanidar 3 and Haman-Todd Collection (National Museum of Natural History, DC), Kebara, Qafzeh, Skhul fossils (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Raymond Dart Collection (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa), Sterkfontein Australopithecus africanus fossils (Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, South Africa), Krapina Neandertal fossils (Zagreb, Croatia), Dolni Vestonice (Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic), Neandertal and Oberkassell fossils (Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany), La Ferrassie Neandertal fossils (Musee de l’Homme, Paris, France), Tabun Neandertal fossils (Natural History Museum, London, UK), Atacamenos (San Pedro de Atacama, Chile), Tierra del Fuegan and Aonikenk (Punta Arenas, Chile), Great and Lesser Apes (Field Museum, Chicago, IL).

I’ve gotten to see behind-the-scenes of some of the world’s most awesome museums, which felt like being in the movie “Night at the Museum” (I was even researching at the American Museum of Natural History while they were filming “Night at the Museum 2”!)! I been able to excavate Native American artifacts so that they wouldn’t be destroyed when roads were built, excavated ancient fossils in a dangerous cave, and even been on TV (Rising Star Expedition is the subject of a documentary that will be airing soon on the Nat Geo Channel)!

But it’s not all fun and games: When I have to do quiet, focused work, like excavating or measuring bones, I can tend to space out. So, a trick I’ve found is to narrate what I’m doing in my head, just like I was in a documentary. It might sound a bit crazy (and I’m glad no one can hear what I’m thinking), but it keeps me on track. A funny thing that it also does, is keep me attuned to particularly interesting or engaging moments that I can share when I speak to classrooms. I also have a habit of keeping about a million tabs open on my browser and multiple documents, so this allows me to move back and forth between projects.

In order to make the most of our scientific discoveries and to keep pushing the boundaries of our knowledge, we need a free-flow of information (open access, open science, open data), and we need to build friendships and connections for sharing experiences.

I live in South Africa where there is a history of intolerance for people of different cultures or what some might call “races.” We have a lot of these same problems in the US, especially where I grew up in St. Louis (near Ferguson), MO. When people feel alone or different, sometimes they band together into groups and try to exclude others. When groups of these scared people disagree, they can often react violently. But, like Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” When we are caught up in violence, we stop using our brains, and stop sharing, and science can come to a halt.

So, like Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a dream. I know the future of science is brightest when it performed by people of every color, gender, sexual orientation, and difference that you can think of, all working side by side. One way to achieve this is by focusing on our evolutionary similarities, not just among living people, but those past and even the animals around us. By creating an awareness of these connections, I hope to create empathy and to show that “no one is alone” (If you haven’t seen the musical, “Into the Woods,” you really should!), and we’re ALL Africans!

Wow. That’s a tall order, but I think we can do this! By working with South African organizations such as the Evolutionary Studies Institute (http://www.wits.ac.za/academic/research/17918/home.html) and American ones like Sepela Field Programs, I have a goal of creating curricula that teach African students about the evolutionary history and future of the rich land they live in so that they can then act as student ambassadors and share what they’ve learned on a YouTube channel with kids (and adults!) all over the world!