Amy Ciminnisi, UD Student of Anthropology, Museum Studies, Women and Gender Studies

This year in 2020, everyone’s initial summer plans flew out the window, and mine were no exception. Last semester I was named a Plastino Scholar and was supposed to conduct short-term fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this summer. Unfortunately, due to safety concerns and UD’s temporary restriction on university-funded travel, I had to postpone my time in Malaysia until winter break or after I graduate. Thankfully, it was relatively easy for me to switch gears and find an opportunity for the summer. I applied for and was selected as the Non-Profit Management Intern for the New York International Children’s Film Festival! Since June, I have researched and tracked hundreds of funders for grants, written Letters of Inquiry to foundations for education programming, learned to use Salesforce to track membership campaigns, and aided in researching new membership benefits to accommodate NYICFF’s virtual programming during the pandemic.

Here’s a link to the festival page It’s very much behind-the-scenes!

Sam Side, UD Anthropology Student

This summer I initially had an internship with the Delaware Department of Social Services.  Originally, I was  supposed to be helping social workers and seeing what they do on a day to day basis, but since COVID, we had to go virtual. I transitioned to aiding the Delaware libraries with their job center and helping people develop resumes and find jobs.   The pace is slow since not many people have been making job spot appointments due to many different reasons right now.  But it has been interesting to go through resumes and think about what skills make employees desirable to employers. It is also interesting to see how people are going about finding jobs or changing their careers during a pandemic.

Hello everyone!

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sarah Driver and I just graduated from UD with a double major in Anthropology and Political Science.  I am spending some time in Puerto Rico working as a research assistant with Professor Roe to continue an Independent Study project.  We are going to be traveling to an old Taino rock shelter to make sure that the carvings that we have in image form correctly match the actual  carvings that are on the walls.  He is going to be presenting at a big symposium for Caribbean archaeology and everything needs to be perfect.  I have Photoshop and a camera, so I’m set to help.  Currently, however, I am sitting in a lovely cool room, blogging, after the long day of traveling to San Juan, PR.

Honestly, a decent number of these blog posts are just going to be about my daily adventures.

I started off today by getting up at 6:30 am bright and early and going to the airport.  That all went well, minus two of my dear lovely siblings being insanely grumpy–Elizabeth had been at a friend’s house in the wee hours of the night and the car broke down, so Holly was asked by my mom to pick her up.  Holly was not pleased.  But anyways, they both went with me to the airport like supportive siblings, even if they muttered the whole way there.

On the plane, I managed to drool on myself while I was sleeping, so that was lovely.  I think Professor Roe may have seen that.

Anyways, we got to Puerto Rico without any troubles and then met up with some friends of his, who will be hosting us.  Their house is lovely and their dinner was fantastic.

The main thing I did today, other than travel and eat and talk, was go running.  The hills here are misery.  I eventually ended up where I was supposed to be but I definitely took a few wrong turns.  Oops.  I didn’t want to use my phone because I wasn’t sure about roaming fees so I asked some of the locals for directions in my middling Spanish.  Either their directions or my Spanish was lousy, so I caved and used my phone.  I was starting to get a little nervous because late afternoon was on its way and some of the houses I was passing were really poor.  And all of the houses here have bars on them!  That is certainly different from home.  One house had a wall with actual razor spikes on top.  And all the dogs bark like they want to eat you, though there was one little pug-looking dog that was very nice.  The chickens are leery of people and have especially long legs.  Most of the people seemed to be nice and I got a lot of sympathy smiles because, like I said, the hills were murderous.

Once I came back we chatted and had dinner.  I took a few photos of the area that I’m in and it is lovely!

My name is Anissa Speakman, I am a rising senior in the Anthropology department, and I am currently working on a Summer Scholars research project. For my research project, I will be looking into dental defects and sex differences in a prehistoric skeletal sample. Dental defects are basically anything that can go wrong with your teeth, like malformed enamel, cavities, abscesses, teeth crowding, etc. I will be specifically looking at malformed enamel (scientific name: enamel hypopalsia) and cavities (scientific name: dental caries) in men and women in a prehistoric skeletal population. Other scholars in the fields of dental anthropology (anthropologists who study primarily dentition) and biological anthropology (anthropologists who study osteology as a whole) have found that women in both living and skeletal samples tend to have higher rates of enamel malformation and cavities. Scholars debate whether this difference in the dental health of the sexes is caused by something biological or something cultural. In my research, I would like to analyze a skeletal sample, and investigate whether the dental health of the women in the sample is really worse than the men. Then, I would like to try to draw a conclusion from my data as to whether the difference in dental health, if there is one, is causes by biology or culture, or a mix of both.

Right now I am working on doing a literature review of all of the information on the topic of sex differences and dental defects. As I work proceed through my project, analyze a skeletal sample, and continue into my senior thesis, I will write updates for the Field Notes Blog.

Until next time,

Anissa

Sophiana Leto is a rising Junior and Plastino Scholar at the University of Delaware. She will be traveling to 5 museums across 4 states to learn about how they create effective outreach programs, engage their local communities, and act as social service providers.

Follow her travels as a Plastino Scholar this summer: http://sleto-community-museums.tumblr.com/