My name's Michael Muehlenbein.
I am a professor and the chair of the
Department of Anthropology
at Baylor University.
Anthropology broadly is the study of humans.
Some people are familiar with
anthropology through Indiana Jones,
but anthropology is so much more.
I have a skill set that allows me to work
on a number of different projects,
whether that be wet lab in terms of
endocrine and immune biomarkers,
or survey work to understand people's motivations,
or animal sampling throughout Asia and Africa
to look at the diversification of malaria.
What I like about anthropology is that
we are a mix of different sciences.
Anthropology is very broad and very deep,
and in general really shines when it comes to
combining qualitative and quantitative methods to answer questions about the human condition.
Our department has a long history of
being good at several things,
and involving undergraduates in research
is one of them.
About 50% of our seniors that graduate will have conducted research --
either their own, or with one of our faculty.
The students have a lot of
opportunity to interact with us,
either in the classroom or in the
laboratory or in the field,
because we offer a number of study abroad programs.
Historically, people have thought that
there is a trade-off,
that you can't maximize both research and teaching.
But there is a lot of opportunity for using
research in teaching, and teaching in research,
and honestly, this is beneficial to the faculty as well,
when they are involving their undergraduates
in their research.
I am interested -- if you had to put one term on it,
in "global population health,"
and Baylor has a very good reputation
for health education.
Being a part of that is what drew me,
but doing that with a mission of compassion.
