Bio

I am a bioarchaeologist interested in understanding the identity and lived histories of people in the past.  My research integrates skeletal analysis with other lines of evidence to paint a fuller picture of how social and cultural changes may have impacted their experiences. I am particularly interested in exploring how the body can provide insight into ancestry, relatedness, and kinship and how these aspects of identity intersect with religious beliefs and mortuary practices.

I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with my Bachelor’s in Anthropology and Art History. My honors thesis reanalyzed a popular form of apotropaic device in the United States during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries due to its prevalence in mortuary contexts. This project cemented my interest in exploring the intersection of archaeology and identity through the analysis of skeletal remains and mortuary contexts in future projects. My current research focuses on estimating the biological affiliation and relatedness of a cemetery population from San Ignacio Church in Bogotá, Colombia in order to shed light on the population histories and demographic shifts throughout different periods at this site.