Guests


SEASON 1: MIGRATION


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KELLY YOTEBIENG
S1E1b
Kelly is a second-year PhD student. Her research focuses on social suffering and tactics for enduring hardship among urban refugees living in Yaoundé, Cameroon. She is fluent in French and has spent over 13 years living in Central Africa and working on issues related to maternal and child health, psychosocial support, and humanitarian programming for refugees and displaced persons. She has a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Florida (2003) with a focus on medical anthropology and a Masters of Public Health from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. At Tulane, she worked under the supervision of a medical anthropologist as part of the Masters Internationalist Fellows program; during the program, she spent 27 months serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. She has also has worked on developing a mental health screening and referral program for resettled refugees in Columbus, Ohio. Kelly’s Department Page

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NATALIA ZOTOVA
S1E1b
Natalia is a third-year PhD student. She is a cultural anthropologist who studies migrants from Central Asia who settle in the United States. Natalia did research among Central Asian migrants in various regions of Russia. She focuses on the experiences of migrants, the resources that they use while accommodating to a new setting, as well as perceptions of stress and insecurity. To collect data for her dissertation, she traveled to New York City in 2015 and to Dushanbe, Tajikistan in  2016. She hopes to include Chicago and Washington metropolitan areas in her research, which would allow a better understanding of experiences of Central Asian migrants in the U.S.  Natalia’s Department Page

mark-moritzDR. MARK MORITZ
S1E2b
Mark Moritz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Environmental Science Graduate Program at the Ohio State University. His research examines how pastoralists have adapted to changing ecological, political and institutional conditions that affect their lives and livelihoods. He has been conducting research with pastoralists in the Far North of Cameroon for over 20 years. The long-term fieldwork has resulted in strong collaborations with local researchers and allowed him to develop innovative, large-scale, interdisciplinary research projects with colleagues at the Ohio State University and Maroua University in Cameroon. His research projects are interdisciplinary and examine social-ecological systems employing the analytical framework of Coupled Human and Natural Systems, while using a regional approach that situates the Far North Region within the historical and political context of the greater Chad Basin. In the last ten years, his research on pastoral systems has focused on several interrelated areas, including: management of common-pool resources; the ecology of infectious diseases; regime shifts in coupled human and natural systems, and the resilience of complex social-ecological systems. Dr. Moritz’s Department Page

erinpictureERIN KANE
S1E2b
Erin Kane is a 5th year PhD student in the department of anthropology. Her dissertation research focuses on understanding the ways Diana monkeys in Cote d’Ivoire respond to changes in food availability. She has spent nearly two years in the Tai Forest in Southwestern Cote d’Ivoire studying these monkeys from many angles, including behavioral ecology, endocrinology, and functional morphology. She has also worked in Madre de Dios, Peru, and in West Turkana, Kenya, as a research assistant on primatological and paleontological field projects. Erin received her MA in anthropology from the Ohio State University in 2012, and her BA in anthropology and environmental studies from Washington University in St. Louis in 2010. Erin’s Department Page

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DR. ROBERT COOK
S1E3b
Dr. Robert A. Cook is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University.  He is an archaeologist whose research is focused on furthering our understanding of cultural transmission and evolution.  Recent efforts have focused on examining the origins of agriculture and village life, human migration and interregional interactions, mortuary patterns, landscapes, diet, relatedness, identity, and cultural affiliation.  Methodological interests include the integration of biological, chemical, geophysical, and archaeological data sets to comprehensively examine the human condition.  He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Eastern US and to a lesser extent in the Southwest US and Mexico.  He is the author of two books and dozens of journal articles and book chapters.  His research has been funded on multiple occasions by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and other state and federal agencies and foundations and has been featured in various national, state, and local media outlets.  He has received multiple awards from The Ohio State University, both for research excellence as well as for student mentoring. Dr. Cook’s Department Page

 

laura-crawfordLAURA CRAWFORD
S1E3b
Laura Crawford is a third-year PhD student at The Ohio State University, and she teaches Introduction to Archaeology. Laura is a paleoethnobotanist, and her main area of interest is ancient Arctic fuel use in Alaska. She like plants, and looking at wood really close up. She has been working at different sites in Alaska since 2007. Starting in 2015 she also worked at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park with the National Park Service as a Pathways Intern. Before she came to OSU she did Cultural Resource Management at the Office of the State Archaeologist in Iowa City for two years. Laura got her Master’s degree at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 2012. She studied Thule fuel use at Cape Espenberg, Alaska and is working on getting a paper published about this research in Arctic. Her other ongoing project is studying Hopewell wood use at an earth oven discovered in 2016. Major cities/countries of interest: Arctic Alaska, Hopewell, Fairbanks Alaska. Laura’s Department Page

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DR. MARK HUBBE
S1E4b
Dr. Mark Hubbe’s research focus is on the study of past modern human populations, the unique evolutionary history of our species, and the role sociocultural developments had in shaping modern human variation worldwide. Within this larger area of interest, his research has revolved around two major axes. The first addresses aspects of human dispersion across large areas,with a special interest in the settlement of South America. The second relates to the study of the origins of social inequality and its impact on the life of Late Holocene populations that inhabited the Atacama Oases, in Northern Chile. This is a unique region for this type of inquiry given the rich history of population interaction and cultural exchange between this area and neighbor regions from the South-Central Andes. To know more about his research interests and access his publications, visit the HEADS research group website at u.osu.edu/heads. Dr. Hubbe’s Department Page

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SELIN NUGENT
S1E4b
Selin Nugent is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at The Ohio State University. She received her BA in Biological Anthropology and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Emory University and MA in Anthropology at The Ohio State University. Her research interests center on human mobility and the politics of death and burial, which she approaches through a bioarchaeological perspective on populations in the ancient Caucasus and Near East. Selin’s doctoral dissertation explores how mobile people interacted with and integrated into emerging urban communities by investigating biogeochemical indicators of lifetime mobility patterns in human skeletal remains and their relation to funerary traditions at the Bronze Age Qizqala community in Naxçıvan, Azerbaijan. Selin’s favorite aspect of her research is engaging with local communities and scholars in Azerbaijan to together promote and preserve cultural heritage. Facebook Page for Selin’s dissertation project, the Naxçıvan Archaeological Project: https://www.facebook.com/NaxArchaeology. Selin’s Department Page

BONUS EPISODES


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DR. JEFFREY COHEN
BONUS EPISODE:
INTERVIEW WITH DR. JEFFREY COHEN
Dr. Cohen’s research focuses on three areas: migration, development and nutrition.  Since the early 1990s he has studied the impact, structure and outcome of migration from indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico to the US with support from the National Science Foundation.   He has also conducted comparative research on Mexican, Dominican and Turkish migration.  His work on traditional foods, nutrition and migration was supported by the National Geographic Society.  In addition to ongoing work in Oaxaca, he is currently studying the migration of Mexicans to Columbus. Dr. Cohen’s Department Page

 SEASON 2: CHILDHOOD

DR. DEBBIE GUATELLI-STEINBERG
S2E1b
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg is Professor of Anthropology and Courtesy Professor of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University. She has conducted extensive research on fossil hominin teeth across Africa, Europe and Asia, and has published widely in the fields of dental palaeoanthropology and dental primatology. Dr. Guatelli-Steinberg’s Department Page

GENEVIEVE RITCHIE-EWING
S2E1b
Genevieve is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at The Ohio State University. Generally, her research focuses on how cultural expectations affect biological responses and health. She currently is collecting data for her dissertation, which examines how cultural expectations of motherhood in the United States affect American women’s perceived and biological stress levels during pregnancy. She has a B.S. in biology from Millersville University and an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Tennessee. At the University of Tennessee, she worked in forensic anthropology, specifically human decomposition research, before switching her attention to modern human variation from a biocultural perspective. Genevieve’s Department Page

DR. GIUSEPPE VERCELLOTTI
S2E2b
Dr. Vercellotti received a Master’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Pisa (Italy) and a doctorate in Anthropology at The Ohio State University. His research interests entail bioarchaeology, human biology, and archaeology. In general, Dr. Vercellotti’s research focuses on how biocultural factors influence human biological variation, especially in regard to growth and development. Dr. Vercellotti has been conducting research on both living and past populations in Europe and South America. He is cofounder of the Field School in Medieval Archaeology and Bioarchaeology at Badia Pozzeveri (Italy) as well as of the Institute for Teaching and Learning in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology (IRLAB), an Ohio non-profit company dedicated to training future generations of archaeologists. Dr. Vercellotti’s Department Page


JESSE GOLIATH
S2E2b
Mr. Goliath received his B.A. in Honors Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame, and his M.A. in Anthropology from The Ohio State University. He also has a graduate minor in Anatomy. His research interests include skeletal biology, bone biomechanics, bioarchaeology, and forensic anthropology. His dissertation work focuses on high resolution CT examination of subchondral bone microarchitecture and its effect on joints. Jesse has presented his research at both the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and American Association of Forensic Sciences professional meetings and has presented lectures on skeletal biology at overseas institutions, such as Khon Kaen University in Thailand. Mr. Goliath has excavated burials both domestically and abroad and has field experience in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. In  2013, Mr. Goliath completed a Fellowship with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory (JPAC-CIL) including a deployment to Vietnam to search for and recover a Vietnam War era missing U.S. Air Force pilot. Mr. Goliath’s Department Page


KATY MARKLEIN
S2E3b
Katy Marklein is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. She holds master’s degrees in Skeletal and Dental Bioarchaeology (University College London) and Archaeology (The University of Sheffield) and bachelor’s degrees in Human Biology Anthropology and Classics (Emory University). Kathryn’s masters work examined differential longitudinal growth among non-adults in Medieval and Postmedieval London and childhood/family identity at the Iron Age site in Kavousi, Crete.

Her current research interests lie in Classical and Roman East Mediterranean and Black Sea human bioarchaeology, investigating historical questions about ancient imperialism, and its proximal and ultimate consequences on liminal populations. For her dissertation, she is studying and contextualizing the onset and virulence of epidemic disease within the sociopolitical and ecological environs of Oymaağaç, Turkey during the second and third centuries CE. Katy’s Department Page


MELISSA CLARK
S2E3b
Melissa Clark is a doctoral candidate in the department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. She is currently studying the effects of British colonization on pre-Famine Ireland using stable isotope analysis and dental stress markers. Melissa has conducted archaeological fieldwork at a Bronze Age site in Vrbanja, Croatia, and a Medieval monastic site in Trim, Ireland,where she has worked for seven years. She has a B.A. in Anthropology and a B.A. in International Studies from OSU and an MSc. from the University of Bradford. Melissa’s Department Page


DR. BARBARA PIPERATA
S2E4b
Dr. Barbara Piperata is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Her research applies an evolutionary and a critical biocultural perspective to the study of nutritional anthropology, food security and reproductive energetics.  Her regional area of focus is Latin America where she has been conducted original field research since 2002. Her current research takes place in the Amazon Basin and Atlantic Coast forests of Brazil and in Nicaragua. Dr. Piperata co-directs the Human Biological Anthropology Laboratory (HBAL) where she provides research and training opportunities in Human Biology to graduate and undergraduate students. You can find more details on Dr. Piperata’s research on her Department Page.


DR. LEXINE TRASK
S2E4b
Lexine Trask is an anthropologist, broadly trained in human population biology, economic and medical anthropology. Dr. Trask’s research examines how neoclassical perspectives of poverty and neoliberalistic welfare reform policies synergistically function to perpetuate economic insecurity and promote inequality among low-income single mothers. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Trask conducted ethnographic field research in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area ascertaining barriers low-income homeless African American single mothers and social welfare service providers perceived as hindering the development of economic mobility since the devolution of welfare. As a scholar and educator, Dr. Trask works toward creating a greater understanding of how the lives and health of impoverished people are influenced by the interaction of economic, sociocultural, and political forces. Dr. Trask’s Department Page


SEASON 3: DEATH


DR. SAM STOUT

SEASON 3: INTERVIEW WITH DR. SAM STOUT

Dr. Stout’s research interests are in the area of skeletal biology and especially its applications in forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology and paleopathology. He applies microscopic methods (histomorphometry) to reveal evidence of health and disease from skeletal remains, and enhance our understanding of population variation, past and present.  Of particular interest is variation in the severity and pattern for age associated bone loss, and increased bone fragility.


BONUS EPISODES


DR. CAROLYN DEAN
BONUS INTERVIEW:
“FLESH AND STONE: THE THRONE OF THE INKA”
Carolyn Dean, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studies Andean, particularly Inka, visual and performance culture both before and after Spanish colonization. She is interested in how the creative arts–from stonework to festive costume–embed various, often-conflicting ontologies and how indigenous perspectives have been ignored, dismissed, and misconstrued from colonial times through the present. She has published numerous articles and two books: Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ (Duke University Press, 1999) and A Culture of Stone (Duke University Press, 2010). Dr. Dean gave the 14th Annual 14th Annual Paul and Erika Bourguignon Lecture in Art and Anthropology at Ohio State University on March 23, 2017. 


DR. LUCAS DELEZENE
BONUS INTERVIEW:
“TEETH OF HOMO NALEDI: A DENTAL PERSPECTIVE ON A NEW SPECIES”

Lucas Delezene, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Arkansas, studies primate dentition with an emphasis on the premolars and canines. He received his PhD from the University of Arizona. For the last several years, Dr. Delezene has been working with the Dinaledi hominin material from South Africa. Dr. Delezene gave a talk to our department at the request of the Graduate Students of Anthropology Association. Website.

 


DR. LARISSA SWEDELL                                        BONUS INTERVIEW:                                          “SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND SEXUAL CONFLICT IN HAMADRYAS BABOONS

Larissa Swedell is a field primatologist whose research focuses primarily on the behavior and ecology of hamadryas baboons, Papio hamadryas.  She directs the Filoha Hamadryas Project, a multi-disciplinary, multi-national project based in Ethiopia’s Awash National Park (http://larissaswedell.org/filoha).  As an anthropologist, Larissa is interested in how the unique, male dominated multi-level society of this species may elucidate aspects of human social evolution.  She and her collaborators have published over 25 articles and a book detailing various aspects of hamadryas natural history. She received her PhD from Columbia University and is a Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York’s Queens College. Dr. Swedell’s Website