Dr. Alexandra Conell’s dissertation, titled “Domestic Corporate Groups: An Ethnographic and Archaeological Examination of Households, Neighborhoods and Communities”, is an in-depth examination of ethnographic material on corporate group behavior analyzed with the goal of identifying variability in these groups—variability that archaeological interpretations may be missing.
Dr. Conell’s research began with a world-wide survey to identify the nature of variability and the key factors to examine further. She then analyzed ethnographic data on five cultural areas in North America, looking for cross-cultural differences and how the domestic corporate group may have changed over time in each area. She created a descriptive model of this variation and change and identified archaeological correlates, which were then applied to an archaeological case study. In doing so, Dr. Conell identified both variability in the nature of this group’s corporateness and change over time. Not only is this information of interest for her specific case study group, but insights from Dr. Conell’s research will contribute broadly to the archaeological study of corporate groups, allowing for more nuanced understandings of these groups and factors that contribute to their variability.
Throughout Dr. Conell’s graduate student career, her advisor, Dr. Jodie O’Gorman, was impressed with how she actively sought out diverse learning experiences. Her pursuit of one of these interests—geophysical surveying techniques—led her to serve as an assistant for a project in Oman under the direction of geologist Dr. Remke Van Dam. While writing her dissertation, Dr. Conell was an instructor at Alma College and an assistant at the MSU Archives, and she excavated every summer at Colonial Michilimackinac. She will pursue cultural resource management following the 2021 season at Michilimackinac.
Dr. Lissie Arndt is a dual degree DO and PhD student, having completed her PhD in 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Linda Hunt (right). Dr. Arndt’s dissertation, titled “The Ambiguity of HIV Risk in Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Administration in New York”, combines her anthropological and medical training as she examines of the concept of “risk” in the emerging market of pharmaceutical prevention of HIV.
Based on close ethnographic examination of the contrasting perspectives of patients, caregivers, public health officials, and pharmaceutical industry representatives, Dr. Arndt reveals a complex picture of “risk” management as the pharmaceuticalization of self and society. She proposes the term “structural risk” to describe how the “risk” concept is built into both societal and health care structures, which manifests in a narrowing of definitions of health and illness, as well as of options for health professionals and patients.
Dr. Arndt’s research is an important contribution to the study of the corporatization of healthcare. Her work illuminates the intimate relationship between corporate interests, clinical models, and public health agendas—raising important questions both for the anthropology of pharmaceuticals and for clinical risk management. As “risk” is increasingly used to revise concepts of many conditions, requiring life-long ingestion of prescription medications, careful consideration of the “structural risk” concept will provide a useful lens for critically examining these issues. In addition to her research and studies, Dr. Arndt co-founded and volunteers with Spartan Street Medicine, a student-led group that provides basic healthcare services to homeless community members in Lansing, Michigan. Dr. Arndt is in the final stages of her medical training and plans to go into family medicine.
This September, the MSU Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (MSUFAL) participated in Operation UNITED in collaboration with the FBI’s Evidence Response Team, the Detroit Police Department (DPD), and several other local universities and law enforcement agencies. Operation UNITED is an acronym which stands for “Unknown Names Identified Through Exhumation and DNA.”
Operation UNITED began as a grassroots effort between DPD Sgt. Shannon Jones and FBI Special Agent Leslie Larsen to solve as many cold case homicides in Detroit as possible. By exhuming the remains of unidentified homicide victims and comparing their DNA with family reference samples, Operation UNITED seeks to make identifications and jump start cold case investigations. This is the third season of the project and participants have successfully exhumed the remains of over 100 unidentified homicide victims, several of which have ultimately led to positive identifications.
Dr. Carolyn Isaac, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and MSUFAL Laboratory Director, as well as graduate students in the Department of Anthropology Clara Devota, Rhian Dunn, Micayla Spiros, and Alex Goots attended the three-day excavation. Each graduate student joined an interdisciplinary team and worked to locate and excavate remains based on cemetery records and autopsy details. Dr. Isaac rotated between the teams, providing her expertise in forensic anthropology and confirming whether or not the remains matched the demographic details of the person in question.
According to Special Agent Leslie Larsen, “Forensic anthropologists on scene are the instrumental piece that we need to make sure we are exhuming the correct bodies from the ground. They review the case files and autopsy reports then match those findings with the human remains uncovered by our dig site teams. Without on-site forensic anthropologists working with us, we would not be able to do these body recoveries.”
Over the course of the three day excavation, Operation UNITED was able to recover human remains from 21 individuals, bringing the running grand total of DNA samples to 121 individuals for the whole project. In short, 121 individuals who have been missing, some for decades, finally have the opportunity to be identified and properly laid to rest, thanks to the tireless efforts of everyone involved in Operation UNITED.
This edition of the Department of Anthropology newsletter recognizes and celebrates our recent graduates who have persevered and achieved their educational goals through a time of extraordinary adversity. As Chair of the Department and on behalf of the Anthropology faculty and staff, we give our sincerest congratulations to the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021. We are so proud of them and impressed by them. The ongoing global pandemic has wrought indescribable loss, grief, and uncertainty in so many aspects of our lives. In the face of such pervasive hardship, our graduates persisted through challenges and overcame obstacles to earn their degrees. We take great joy in commemorating this milestone that reflects their numerous achievements and the culmination of their triumphs and determination.
In this special newsletter issue, we feature our 2020 and 2021 PhD graduates and four of our exceptional undergraduate graduates who received their degrees this past spring. Next to each graduate’s name is the subfield of anthropology in which they specialize; however, they all embrace the diverse and holistic nature of our discipline.
Since the onset of the pandemic, twelve of our PhD students have earned their doctoral degrees. They completed and defended their dissertation research, which is briefly described in these articles. This feat represents a myriad of efforts in their enduring work over the years and the guiding mentorship from advisors and faculty. The journey towards a PhD involves many challenges, made more difficult by the pandemic, and these doctoral graduates have shown considerable strength through it all. The research and work over the course of these graduates’ careers have made significant contributions to the larger body of scholarly knowledge and have truly made an impact in the world.
All four of our featured graduated undergraduate students represent the Department of Anthropology’s outstanding seniors who have excelled in their coursework, conducted independent research with their mentors, and served as positive influences in their communities. As many traditional collegiate experiences were curtailed during their final year in response to health and safety efforts, our undergraduate students’ achievements are all the more commendable as they continually adapted with grace, diligence, and creativity.
Please join us in honoring our graduates and their many accomplishments and in appreciating their resilience. To all of our graduates, you have inspired us more than you know, and we look forward to celebrating your future successes.
The Anthropological Responses to Health Emergencies (ARHE) Special Interest Group was one of this year’s recipients of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Presidents’ Award for the group’s extraordinary service. Dr. Deon Claiborne, Undergraduate Advisor for the MSU Department of Anthropology, is the Co-Chair of this group with Dr. Kristin Hedges of Grand Valley State University. The ARHE is a Special Interest Group of the Society for Medical Anthropology. The group’s overall mission is to engage and collaborate with colleagues working in the field of public health and infectious disease in emergency and humanitarian contexts.
With this honor, the ARHE group was “recognized for rapidly mobilizing a wide range of valuable information resources in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, including a series of highly informative webinars, online background information resources, and an expanded roster of content area specialists ready to share their insights with response partner organizations and affected communities.” Dr. Claiborne has facilitated and promoted this work since the pandemic’s onset, and recently presented on this group’s role and effect during health emergencies at the American Anthropological Association’s virtual conference.
In response to this prestigious award, Dr. Claiborne expressed that “both Kristin and myself were surprised by this honor. It has been our pleasure to serve as Co-Chairs for ARHE and to develop, collaborate on, and moderate the three webinars we were involved with at the beginning of the pandemic.”
To learn more about the ARHE and access the group’s resources, visit their website: arhe.medanthro.net
The Department of Anthropology is very pleased to introduce our new Business Manager, Jocelyn Janicek, who joined the department in February 2020. As Business Manager, Jocelyn carries out numerous responsibilities to ensure the department’s success. These roles include providing support to the Department Chair, overseeing fiscal responsibilities for the department as fiscal officer, providing budget oversight and administrative support for grant administration (both pre-award and post-award), managing maintenance and renovation of Anthropology’s spaces, supervising issuance of technology and essential work-related equipment, and managing administrative personnel while also overseeing the human resource aspect of the department. Jocelyn is certainly instrumental in contributing to the important work that the Anthropology staff does.
Prior to joining the Department of Anthropology, Jocelyn worked in various MSU departments and/or units, pursuing her career within the MSU community since 2014. Jocelyn’s previous work includes experience in research, accounting, human resources, and the reform and creation of campus policies.
Jocelyn is thrilled to be a part of the Anthropology team and work in this department. Although the remote situation brought on by the pandemic left her to meet most of the Anthropology faculty and students virtually, she looks forward to meeting everyone in person when we return to campus.
In Jocelyn’s free time, she likes spending time with her family and animals and going off-roading. She has two horses, with whom she enjoys trail riding, and two very lovable dogs. Jocelyn also enjoys traveling in her off-road vehicle with her partner.
Promotional graphic by Elizabeth Schondelmayer, College of Social Science
During the Fall 2020 semester, Michigan State University’s Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) adapted their yearly Apparitions and Archaeology: A Haunted Campus Tour to address the present realties of the COVID-19 pandemic and a mostly closed campus. The tour has grown every year since its inception in 2014 and was attended by over two hundred people in 2019. Director Dr. Stacey L. Camp and outgoing Campus Archaeologist Autumn Painter knew CAP had to keep up the tradition, as it is one of their largest outreach events of the fall semester. They decided to create a virtual version of the tour that would allow the public from afar to explore the haunted and historic spaces on campus. Autumn Painter and other CAP graduate student fellows had previously created virtual exhibits as part of CAP’s ever-growing digital cultural heritage initiatives, but the online haunted tour turned out to be the largest they have created thus far.
Over the course of ten weeks, from late May until July 2020, CAP fellows Rhian Dunn and Jeff Burnett developed an interactive virtual tour using an open-source story telling tool called Twine. Twine provides developers an efficient way to create “choose your own adventure”-style stories that audience members can explore in their own way. One advantage of the online tour is that they could include all eight sites that CAP has investigated over the years: Beaumont Tower, Sleepy Hollow, Saints’ Rest, Beal Garden, and more! When running the in-person tour, CAP typically showcases and presents five sites at a time.
Backend of CAP’s Haunted Tour on Twine, demonstrating all 74 pages and the links between them.
The virtual tour was designed to give participants a choice in the content they wished to explore. The tour consists of twenty-five main pages featuring the eight historical sites and their attendant archaeological and haunted stories. Each page features a link to several of the forty-seven additional pages, allowing audience members to delve deeper into campus history. Additional links can be selected to return to the main sites or to continue exploring. Examples of these pages include: MSU’s “Sacred Space”, CAP’s celebrated Moore Artifact and the doll Mabel, and the history of fire and destruction on campus.
CAP’s virtual Apparitions and Archaeology: A Haunted Campus Tour was hosted on MSU’s Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences and appeared on the front page of CAP’s website for the entire month of October. The event was publicized by CAP via their social media pages and by university partners including the MSU Alumni Office, the College of Social Science, the MSU Paranormal Society, and the Department of Anthropology. Discussion of the tour and interviews with CAP members appeared in the State News, MSU Today, and even on WILX TV10. This advertisement prompted four hundred forty-nine unique views on CAP’s blog post hosting the links to the tour, making it their fourth most visited page of all time. In collaboration with the MSU Alumni Office, they also had a live Question & Answer event featuring video content on the tour, which was developed by the MSU Alumni Office and the College of Social Science. The Campus Archaeology Program is immensely pleased with the results of the tour and they send our most sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to its great success.
Anthropology PhD student Kelsey Merreck Wagner describes her work as living at the nexus of aesthetics, anthropological inquiry of environmental ruin at human hands, and hope for socio-environmental justice. Wagner’s research interests include the cultural norms and institutions that define our human-environment relations and seek pathways towards sustainability and coexistence. She is especially interested in culture and meaning, and how humans mediate the environment through cultural systems of action. This approach attends to issues of intersectionality, agency, sustainability, and cultural change. In her investigation of these issues, Wagner utilizes arts-based interventions—such as gallery exhibits, community projects, and multimedia—to raise awareness about ecological issues and move towards social and environmental justice.
Wagner’s primary research focuses on human-elephant conflict in Southeast Asia, a problem exacerbated by globalized capitalist practices, increasing urbanization, and neoliberal tendencies to divide and manipulate the environments humans and animals share. While unable to travel for research this past summer due to the pandemic, Wagner has continued her arts-based activism through a trash and textiles project she calls “Loom & Doom.” Using plastic bags collected from other people, she creates weavings that speak to the enormity of the planet’s plastic habit.
This project has allowed Wagner to initiate a mini-ethnography on plastic consumption. Some of her most environmentally concerned friends have nothing to contribute because they do not use plastic, while others donate their plastic after they have reused it multiple times, still others have endless new bags to provide each week. Wagner sees each exchange as helping to contextualize the way our actions affect the environment. The process of weaving abandoned mediums into a narrative of human-product-environmental relations points to the complex web of ecology we live in, destroy, and seek to protect.
Wagner sees the arts as a powerful means of activism, drawing attention and bearing witness to structural inequities and environmental catastrophes around the world. Currently, Wagner’s weaving and printmaking work is featured in several exhibits, including: #postmarked, Crafting the Future; All Animal Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online; Catalyst, Michigan State University; and Who are You Voting for? at Woman Made Gallery. Her work has been shown in solo and group shows internationally and across the United States. Before studying at MSU, Wagner worked around the world, operationalizing creative practices as a means of bridging cultures, raising awareness, and celebrating cultural and natural heritage.
Wagner appreciates the mentorship of her advisor Dr. Beth Drexler, who encourages her to continue exploring the intersections between affect, activism, infrastructure, violence, environment, animals, and people. In addition to pursuing her doctorate in Anthropology, Wagner is seeking specializations in Gender, Justice and Environmental Change and Human Animal Studies, as well as a certification in Community-Engaged Research. As anthropological theory drives her research, Wagner also values the incorporation of transdisciplinary knowledge to address social and environmental ills.
After earning her PhD, Wagner would like to work in a community-based capacity, using arts education and programming to connect communities with their environments. Her anthropological training has informed her work at galleries and museums, and she looks forward to bringing a better understanding of human diversity and culture into her curatorial work. Wagner hopes to empower and uplift communities and their unique practices by celebrating creative expression and initiating grassroots activism.
Assistant Professor Carolyn Isaac joined the Department of Anthropology in Fall 2019 and is one of the three acclaimed forensic anthropologists of the Michigan State University Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (MSUFAL) with Dr. Todd Fenton and Dr. Joseph Hefner. Dr. Isaac is the Director of the MSUFAL and oversees the lab’s operations and involvement with forensic casework. While Dr. Isaac recently joined us, she is an MSU alumna whose roots with the lab extend to her time as a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology.
After earning her PhD in 2013, Dr. Isaac was a forensic anthropologist and Assistant Professor for the Department of Pathology, Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, and Medical Examiner’s Office for twelve Michigan counties. As the forensic anthropologists for the ME’s Office, Dr. Isaac and MSU alumnus Dr. Jered Cornelison were responsible for all skeletal analyses, identifications, infant skeletal surveys, and mass fatality planning. During her tenure there, Dr. Isaac was involved in numerous and varied casework, and worked on over 300 forensic anthropology cases.
On being Director of the MSUFAL, Dr. Isaac says that it feels like a full-circle experience: “As a graduate student, the MSUFAL is where Dr. Fenton taught me how to be a forensic anthropologist and gave me the invaluable case experience. Although I have very big shoes to fill, I am looking forward to giving back to this lab and all of the amazing people that make it the best job in the world.” The people, past and present, who have graced this laboratory are what Dr. Isaac says comprise the best of the MSUFAL.
Dr. Isaac (right) and Dr. Cornelison (left) on a forensic case
Dr. Isaac’s research seeks to create a method for estimating the age of skeletal injuries, beginning with the cranium. To do this, Dr. Isaac and her research team have collected samples of cranial injuries from medical examiner cases and body donations. These samples are thin sectioned, stained, and mounted on slides. These slides are then used to evaluate the cells and tissues involved in the fracture healing process. By understanding this progression, Dr. Isaac and her team hope to establish stages of cranial fracture healing with diagnostic histologic features that can be used to estimate the age of the injury. Such estimations can aid in determining whether an injury contributed to death, whether there are multiple injuries or various ages indicating a pattern of abuse, and may contribute to the manner of death classification. Dr. Isaac and her research team were awarded a National Institute of Justice Grant for this critical research.
In the work to establish standards and best practices in the discipline, Dr. Isaac is a Member of the Anthropology Consensus Body of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Standards Board. She is the Chair of the working group on standards for personal identification and is a member of the working group on standards for analyzing skeletal trauma. Dr. Isaac is also an active and leading member of the Michigan Mortuary Response Team (MIMORT). During her time at Western Michigan, she helped craft the Mass Fatality Plan for the Medical Examiner’s Office and became a liaison to the counties and the region for mass fatality preparations and trainings, including helping to organize MIMORT and regional Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) exercises.
The Department is delighted to have Dr. Isaac with us, and we look forward to her work ahead.
The Department of Anthropology is thrilled to congratulate Dr. Henry Miller for being awarded the Society for Historical Archaeology’s J.C. Harrington Medal for 2020. This recognition is the highest international award for scholarly contributions to the field of historical archaeology. An alumnus of the MSU Department of Anthropology, Dr. Miller earned his PhD in 1984 with Dr. Charles “Chuck” Cleland as his advisor. Dr. Miller is the first MSU graduate to receive the honor and expresses that this department made a significant impact on his life. The award was presented to Dr. Miller at the society’s annual conference in recognition of a lifetime of contributions to the field in scholarship, mentorship, service, and collegiality.
Dr. Miller’s early engagement with the emerging field of historical archaeology began as a college student, when he took part in a field school at the site of the earliest European settlement in Arkansas. The next summer, he was hired as an excavator at St. Mary’s City—the first European settlement and capital of Maryland. This was a pivotal experience for Dr. Miller, as this site and academic area strongly resonated with him. He was later accepted into the new, formative MSU program for the study of historical sites and studied with Drs. Charles Cleland, Moreau Maxwell, and Larry Robbins.
During his studies, zooarchaeology became a major interest and the focus of Dr. Miller’s seminal doctoral research, which was the first large scale study of colonial Chesapeake diet and subsistence patterns. His pioneering work in zooarchaeology is also known through his collaborative research that analyzed previously overlooked oyster shells as ecological evidence at archaeological sites.
Much of Dr. Miller’s career has been dedicated to historic St. Mary’s City, serving as the Director of Research there since 1987. His extensive and dynamic research activities extend to his first excavations at St. Mary’s City and have resulted in profound contributions to the scholarship of historic Chesapeake Bay and the Mid-Atlantic region. Dr. Miller’s research interests include foodways and colonial architecture, ceramics, tobacco pipes and oyster shells, changing landscapes over time, and the intellectual influences that shaped early Maryland. Among the numerous archaeological projects at St. Mary’s City in which Dr. Miller has been integral was the excavation and investigation of the parish church burials including members of Lord Baltimore’s family, the Calverts, Maryland’s founding family. This project involved a large collaborative, multidisciplinary research team and garnered international attention.
Dr. Miller with a lead coffin (1683) excavated from historic St. Mary’s City, MD
Throughout his career, Dr. Miller has been devoted to translating these archaeological and historical findings into a multitude of informative and engaging public exhibits. Dr. Miller was one of the core planners for the highly successful “Written in Bone: Forensic Files from the 17th Century Chesapeake” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution Natural History Museum, which ran from 2009–2014 and featured findings from St. Mary’s City. An upcoming volume co-edited by Dr. Miller titled “Unearthing St. Mary’s City: 50 Years of Archaeology at Maryland’s First Capital” (University of Florida Press) presents the vast discoveries from St. Mary’s City and will be available May 2021.
With his significant contributions to Maryland’s history, Dr. Miller became the first Maryland Heritage Scholar in 2011. His mentorship has been appreciated by many in various roles, including as a long-time adjunct professor of anthropology at St. Mary’s College. Dr. Miller has held multiple leadership positions with the Society for Historical Archaeology and contributed to the establishment of the first professional standards for the care of historic archaeological collections.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Henry Miller on this prestigious recognition of his myriad of achievements.
