“Serve it, serve it! kids playing Wii
For somebody that studies human skeletons
all day, my life is pretty normal.
(Laughing, talking and game sounds)
But it is really nice that my kids think my
job is so cool.
Mom did career day in fourth grade -
Tell them what I brought -
she brought a mummified hand and let people
touch it. Everyone thinks that you’re the
best person at career day and you’re going
to come again this year.
It’s nice to have your kid proud of what
you do and it also, I’m glad that they have
kind of a more open view of science, of the
museum and what goes on here.
I got into science in a very roundabout way.
I never had a real passion or a calling to
be a forensic anthropologist, nor did I even
know what it was. I went to college, had no
idea what I wanted to do when I graduated...
I had a professor who really encouraged me
to get into anthropology, and for lack of
anything else to do, I went.
I volunteered at everything because I really
didn’t know what I liked within the field
of anthropology, and became so fascinated
with the types of information that you could
learn from the bones and how it tied into
history and people today that it really changed
my whole course of study in graduate school
and eventually led to me working here.
You know, in this museum we kind of joke because
many of us don’t have hobbies. Some people
would consider us geeks in that we love what
we do and we love to talk about it, but a
lot of people want to be like us. We just
have a passion for what we do and that’s
our work.
I would say if there’s one quality of being
a scientist that’s important is it’s good
observation skills - you will be able to see
things and find things that other people cannot,
being a good observer and looking for evidence
that’s hidden that’s the main quality
no matter what field of science you’re going
into.
I have here, a case, in the Written in Bones
Exhibit in which observational skills were
crucial for resolving a murder. This is the
skeleton of a man who’s dead was originally
ruled accidental. New evidence came about
that made the police exhume the body and bring
it to us for analysis. What you have here
is evidence of fire damage but you also have
evidence of how this man died. You can see
cut marks in his lower ribs on either side.
We were able to map those out and actually
present this evidence in a court of law which
led to a conviction of the murderer. And so…this
is tremendously satisfying for us because
we get to resolve a case but it’s also emotionally
satisfying because we get to bring families
closure in these types if incidents. And the
family, in fact, was so grateful for the resolution
of the death of their loved one that they
actually donated his remains to be used in
exhibits, like this, that can teach the public
the power of the bones and the evidence that
they contain.
To be able to use science as a way to collect
the evidence to tell these stories really
is a perfect fit for all of my interests,
and I couldn’t think of a better career
to have.
