University of Arkansas

Graduate Student, Environmental Dynamics

Instructor- ANTH 1013H- Honors Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences

Thesis Title: Dental Microwear of Pliocene Bovids from Early Hominin Sites in Eastern Africa: Implications for Paleoenvironmental Dynamics and Human Evolution

About

I am a PhD candidate in Environmental Dynamics and a Walton Doctoral Academy Fellow at the University of Arkansas.  My dissertation, funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, uses confocal microscopy to reconstruct the diets of fossil bovids from the sites of Kanapoi and Allia Bay in Kenya, Laetoli in Tanzania and Hadar in Ethiopia. The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of environmental change over time at these important hominin localities and how it might have influenced our own evolutionary trajectory.

I have conducted dental microwear analysis on a variety of taxa, including extant and fossil primates, bovids, carnivores, hominins and modern humans.  I have also been part of field teams working at Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve in Madagascar, Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua, the Great Divide Basin in Wyoming and Amarna in Egypt.

My research interests include dietary reconstruction and community paleoecology of fossil mammals.

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