A Bit About Me
Research
To understand how human behavior evolved, we must first build tools capable of seeing it. My research sits at this critical intersection, where paleoanthropology meets mathematics and computation. I ask what new insights about behavioral patterns can be revealed from the archaeological and fossil record when we innovate in ways that no single discipline could on its own. I have built a collaborative community where scholars, across these disciplines and at varying career stages, are opening new analytical frontiers through the independent, international community, Anthropological and Mathematical Analysis of Archaeological and Zooarchaeological Evidence (AMAAZE), and my lab at the University of Minnesota, AMAAZE-labs.
The driving motivation of my work originated in the deisre to better understand how diachronic changes in human behavior emerged through evolving human-environmental interactions. As a paleoanthropologist specializing in vertebrate taphonomy and zooarchaeology, I first approached this question through hominin subsistence, examining how early humans accessed marrow in competition with large carnivores and how this behavior informed the later shift to hunting animals larger than themselves (a uniquely human behavior among primates). Identifying these behavioral changes sets the foundation to pursue more profound evolutionary questions about sociality, cognition, and changing life histories and biology. This early work revealed key methodological limitations and bottlenecks which my research program now addresses by developing tools for data digitization and 3D shape analysis that are capable of extracting behavioral signals from archaeological and fossil materials. Designed to be integrated across material types, sites, and time periods, these higher precision tools expand our capacity to robustly process and analyze large datasets at an accelerated rate, thus improving our ability to pursue large-scale questions about our human past.
Over time, my work has shifted toward addressing the methodological bottlenecks that make these questions difficult to answer. Although the genesis of this work lies in paleoanthropology, the tools and workflows I develop have broad applicability across archaeology, forensics, and other disciplines that work with complex visual, spatial, and material data. At its core, this work is about removing barriers and making it easier for people to carry out their research and, in some cases, making it possible to pursue questions they could not answer before.
Education and Community
I am a proponent of responsive relational pedagogy. I am keenly aware of people's uncertainties coming into educational settings and I find that when my instructional approach adapts to the realities of the educational context, it removes external barriers to education that students so often mistake for personal inadequacy, and transforms hesitation into engagement and empowerment. Thus, I iteratively reflect on my pedagogical approach and challenge my perspectives on how students interact with their educational experience, remaining sensitive to the fact that our backgrounds, circumstances, and resources are so varied.
I make a point of inviting students into my projects as collaborative contributors. I find that students have a more enriching experience when they can bring who they are, their priorities, and their own creative energy to the project in a meaningful way. I look for opportunities for them to co-author papers, design their own synergistic projects, or build tools that extend the work in directions I might never have imagined.
I also think about learning as something that shouldn’t stop at the edge of a university. I value community and public spaces and programs where people can meet science and research as something relevant to their own lives. That’s what led me to start Science and Social Studies Adventures (SASSAk12), an educational nonprofit that is building a better future by making connections between what happens in research and society.
Regardless of the venue, it’s about creating entry points at every level—for kids, educators, undergraduates, new graduate students, and an interested public—and making the work as transparent and inviting as possible.
If you would like to learn more from those who have inspired my approach, I highly recommend exploring the following works:
Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Asking a different question. Teachers College Press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2022). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. John Wiley & Sons.
Hammond, Z. (2014). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin Press.
Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press.
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women's ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic books.
Thompson, P., & Carello, J. (2022). Trauma-informed pedagogies. Springer.
Imad, M. (2022). Trauma‐informed education for wholeness: Strategies for faculty & advisors. New directions for student services, 2022(177), 39-47.
Rendon, L.I. Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education 19, 33–51 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01191156
Life Outside of Work
I am the mother of two absolutely astounding women who I could not be more proud of. I also share a whole lot of love and joy with my spouse, mother, and brother. Though my grandparents and father are no longer with us physically, thoughts of them lift my heart and give me strength. Then there are the extended family, my friends, my colleagues, and the kitties. I am truly fortunate. Activities I enjoy include travel, cross-stitch, reading, writing, yoga, hiking, and open water swimming.