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Students

Learn who the lab members are and what they are researching.

At the moment, I am supervising one post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Angela Silva Bessa, who is supporting the curation a new osteological collection stored at the Department of Archaeology (please see C.O.M. Collection for more information).

I am also supervising five PhD students, Marianna Cervantes, Elena Sierra, Tabasom Ilkhan, Cathy Tran, and Pegah Goodarzi. Marianna is carrying out a critical analysis of ancestry-related traits in children, their expression relative craniofacial growth, stress, and marginalization. Elena is exploring and developing new morphological and more inclusive approaches for adult age estimation. Tabasom is interested in the impact of political, economic and social changes on Iranian Bronze and Iron Age populations from an auxological perspective. Cathy is exploring the potential of non-invasive ancient DNA and forensic anthropology methods to identify buried individuals for humanitarian purposes.

I am currently supervising only one MA student, Deanna Alvarez. Deanna is working on dental age estimation methods and dental development in Indigenous children for application in human rights violations investigations. 

In addition, I am co-supervising PhD student Katherine Nichols (with Dr. Eldon Yellowhorn, Dr. Deanna Reader, and Dr. Dongya Yang), from the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, whose research focuses on forensic search and recovery methods, and is investigating unmarked graves at the Brandon Indian Residential School in Manitoba in collaboration with Indigenous communities.

Lastly, I am supervising Nicola Murray, who is an undergraduate research assistant and is providing support in a number of projects that rely on 3D scanning and processing, analysis of growth data, and collection curation.

I have supervised or co-supervised over 40 post-doc, graduate and undergraduate students over the last 15+ years. More about them here soon.

I am NOT taking on new graduate students, until September of 2026.