The Virtual Morphology Lab would like to give a warm welcome to our two new undergraduate volunteers for this semester!

Gladys was born in El Salvador and raised in Homestead, Fl. She is a third-year at UF working towards a double-major in Psychology’s Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience tract to combine her interests in evolution, developmental anatomy, and neuroscience. Gladys is currently waiting to hear back from the University Scholars Program on the acceptance of her project proposal. This research will look at the migration of upper-middle class families in Homestead and the effects on demography and economic shifts, relating this to how Latino culture has adapted to changes observed. She is also working with Dr. DeLeon on an anoles project, analyzing how the invasion of Cuban anoles have effected native Floridian anoles. In her free time, Gladys likes to FaceTime her dog and try new coffee recipes.

Abbey is currently a junior at UF. Born and raised in Tampa, Fl, her frequent visits to Gainesville inspired her to apply to the university for her undergraduate studies. As a recent transfer from Santa Fe College, she is assisting one of our graduate students, Molly, with her H.E.T.M.P. project. She spends most of her free time reading historical fiction and nonfiction while occasionally helping out at the Alachua County Humane Society.

Naomi began working on her undergraduate senior thesis since last semester and has recently finished analysing her data. Her research thesis focuses on the growth and development patterns in the hands of non-human and human primates. Using the Amira program in the lab, she has created 3-D reconstructions for her non-human primate specimens to determine ossification and fusion stages. Go see her present her final poster and findings at the FSA conference in Tampa this March!

These are two specimens Naomi finished analyzing this week.

Congratulations go out to Molly for presenting on her outreach initiative, the Human Evolution Teaching Materials Project (HETMP), as part of the Florida Anthropological Student Association’s Colloquium Series. We look forward to hearing more on how she plans to integrate the teaching of human evolution into existing middle school and high school science curricula. To find out more about HETMP, visit www.HETMP.com.

It’s the beginning of a new semester! With everyone back in town, we are getting ready to work hard  in preparation of upcoming conferences, continuing to work on projects, and writing papers and manuscripts. We had our first lab meeting this morning where we began by setting goals for both ourselves and the lab. Happy New Year and welcome to the start of a great Spring semester!

Molly successfully defended her Masters Thesis this week. Her paper, “The Impact of Selection for Facial Reduction in Dogs:  Geometric Morphometric (GM) Analysis of Canine Cranial Shape,” tested the effects of artificial selection for paedomorphic (smushed) faces in many brachycephalic breeds.

Congratulations, Molly!

With Thanksgiving coming up this Thursday, some of our lab members are heading home for the holidays to be with family. We would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels!

 

Here are some fun facts you can share with your friends and family:

The five most popular ways to serve leftover turkey is in a sandwich, in a stew, chili or soup, casseroles and as a burger.

Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clicking noise.

Turkeys have a long, red, fleshy are called a snood that grows from the forehead over the bill.

 

 

Sarah used the funds from her 2017 James C. Waggoner Grant-in-Aid to travel to Baltimore, MD in June. She collected preliminary dissertation data from the postmortem CT scan collection housed at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Sarah is currently analyzing the preliminary thoracic and pelvic shape data. 

 

Recently, Molly Martell received the O. Ruth McQuown Scholarship Award. The O. Ruth McQuown Scholarship award goes to students in the Humanities and Social Sciences. It is awarded on the basis of academic achievement, 
commitment to helping others overcome barriers, and contribution to the community. Molly’s work on H.E.T.M.P. (Human Evolutionary Teaching Materials Project) exemplifies these goals. Learn more about H.E.T.M.P at www.hetmp.com.

 

Congratulations to Andree for being selected to receive a 2017 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship! Her anticipated dissertation research will study cranial diversity in relation to the African diaspora, seeing if and how diversity manifested on the skeleton echoes slave migration patterns, as well as how that manifests in modern identity construction for peoples of African descent. Further, the inclusion of Caribbean populations hopes to contribute to ancestry determination methodologies that can account for the substantial genetic and morphological diversity arising from diaspora migration and rupture.