Join us in congratulating the following students on receiving departmental award funding this year and read more to learn about their plans. Seungyeon Hong Recipient of the Janis Faith Steingruber Student Travel Award With the grant, I will go back to South Korea this summer to collect legacy wood materials from Korean museums for radiocarbon dating. This will help reconstruct regional chronologies during the period of state formation and collapse in the Three Kingdoms era of Korea and examine how local communities interacted differently with state authorities across time and space. Tuğçe Yalçın Recipient of the Janis Faith Steingruber Student Travel Award I am honored to receive the Janis Steingruber Award, which will support my fieldwork this summer. My research investigates how hunters in a sedentary society interacted with their landscape and wildlife through their ecological knowledge. One of the most exciting parts of this research is exploring the study area by evaluating environmental features and identifying possible deer habitats. This will allow me to develop a Maximum Entropy model to reconstruct how ancient hunters developed their spatial strategies to hunt local deer species. The award will support my fieldwork in the mountainous and forested landscapes of western Anatolia. While collecting environmental data for my research, I hope to gain a sense of the experiences of people who lived there 3,500 years ago. Hadley Mueller-Hill Recipient of the Melissa Hague Field Study Award This award will support my field research in Sri Lanka examining hybridization between purple-faced and gray langurs. Using behavioral observations and noninvasive DNA sampling, I will investigate kinship and family relationships within mixed-species groups to better understand how social behavior shapes hybridization in endangered primates. Samuel Siaw Recipient of the Melissa Hauge Field Study Award and the Robert E. Rhoades Pre-Dissertation Travel Award The award funds will support pre-dissertation fieldwork for my project on “Blueberry Farmers and Climate Change in Georgia, USA.” During the summer of 2026, I will visit four counties to conduct exploration interviews with blueberry farmers, Extension officers, and agricultural organizations. This fieldwork will help identify research communities and build relationships that will shape the design of my dissertation project, grounded in fieldwork. Cassie Hausdorf Recipient of the Janis Faith Steingruber Travel Award I am planning on using the Janis Steingruber award funds towards the travel and expenses of my fieldwork in southeastern Hungary during the summer of 2026. During this fieldwork season, I will begin analyzing the faunal material relating to my dissertation research. Monika Giri Recipient of the Robert E. Rhoades Pre-Dissertation Travel Award I would use the award funds to conduct preliminary fieldwork in New Jersey, USA. This fieldwork is in anticipation of my dissertation research on the impacts and outcomes of relocation through voluntary buyout programs for climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Marcie Demyan Recipient of the Joseph R. Caldwell Award The Joseph Caldwell award will be used to process petrographic and NAA samples from ceramics excavated at Mound Key, Florida, the capital of the Calusa polity by the time of European intrusion. Faith Macdonald Recipient of the Janis Faith Steingruber Travel Award I am currently using the funds to support preliminary dissertation fieldwork in Aragon, Spain. I am spending this time reading site reports that have not been digitized and assessing the faunal assemblages available in the Museo de Teruel y Museo de Zaragoza for their size and taphonomic condition. I will use this information to apply for more funds to carry out my doctoral research. Lauren Marks Bowman Recipient of the Melissa Hague Field Study Award I was awarded the Melissa Hague award and I’ll use the funds to offset expenses needed for two trips to the Geechee community of Pin Point in Savannah, GA. While there, I will be conducting research into plant habitat and land loss, and the ways that this affects the cultural heritage and traditional knowledge of the Gullah Geechee community of the region. This research will then be incorporated into a short documentary that I will be co-producing. Justice Britton Recipient of the Joseph R. Caldwell Award I will be using these funds to conduct fieldwork relating to my dissertation research in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. My dissertation research explores how to document historic 18th Century Cherokee Townsites and cultural landscapes along the Tennessee River that are currently resting under between 5 and 18 feet of water. This involves conducting Sonar surveys and underwater photography to search for the sunken physical elements of these settlements, however, this work will also involve interviewing storytellers, knowledge-keepers, tribal historians, cultural resource specialists, and individuals - like myself - who actually trace their family history to some of these submerged settlements to explore the intangible elements of Cherokee heritage associated with these locations. As this project involves collaborating with research partners who are tribal members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation, a bulk of these funds will be used to travel to speak with tribal partners in their own communities in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and Cherokee, North Carolina. Type of News/Audience: Alumni Departmental
