University of Kent

Graduate Student, School of Anthropology and Conservation

PhD Student in Biological Anthropology

Thesis Title: Ancient human bone histology and behaviour.

About

I received my BSc in Biological Anthropology in 2010, and specialized in osteology and paleopathology. I carried out research on medieval adult human skeletal remains addressing the link between enamel defects and age-at-death in the context of medieval social status hierarchy (this research was mentioned in the Evolutionary Anthropology news piece http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/evan.20313/full). My interest in bone growth, as well as its microstructural variation in humans, developed from this undergraduate project. I became fascinated with the composition, development and growth of skeletal tissues.

My PhD research is focused on ancient bone microstructural alterations that relate to activity and bone growth pathology. I am researching femoral bone histomorphology and histomorphometry in medieval population from Kent. I am based in the Biological Anthropology Research Laboratory at UKC, and use scanning electron microscopy facilities at the Institute of Neurology at UCL.

I teach Foundations of Human Culture (SE302) seminars, Human Osteology (SE566), Forensic Archaeology (PS502), and Palaeopathology (SE569) laboratory practicals, as well as lecture about inferring behaviour from the human skeleton.

I am appointed as an Osteologist for a commercial osteological unit: Kent Osteological Research and Analysis (link below), through which I have excavated and analysed numerous skeletal remains for many archaeological units of the South East England, as well as assisted with running weekend public osteology courses. 

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