Bioarch Graduate Students/Undergrads
GRADUATE STUDENT ADVISEES
Carrie Anne Berryman. carrie.a.berryman@vanderbilt.edu
Bioarchaeology; Paleopathology; Dietary reconstruction; Nutrition; Dental health; Development of political complexity; Tiwanaku; Andes.
Carrie Anne graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee in 1999 with a BA in anthropology and completed an MA in anthropology at the University of Arkansas in 2001. She has conducted bioarchaeological research in Greece, Jordan, Honduras, Guatemala, Bolivia, and the U.S. and served as osteologist for the Cancuen Archaeological Project in Guatemala for three years. Now ABD, Carrie Anne’s dissertation research is focused on the rise of Tiwanaku political authority in the Southern Titicaca Basin of Bolivia during the Late Formative and Middle Horizon periods. Through combining stable isotopic indicators of diet, standard dental analyses, and analysis of phytoliths from human dental calculus, her research is elucidating changing patterns of trade and dietary resource distribution that accompanied the rise of the archaic state.
Beth Koontz. Cassandra.S.Koontz@vanderbilt.edu
Bioarchaeology; Skeletal trauma; Violence; Warfare; Ethics in bioarchaeology; Cultural patrimony; Latin America.
After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with degrees in Anthropology and Dramatic Art, Beth earned a J.D. at Franklin Pierce Law Center. She then served the State of North Carolina for two years as an Assistant District Attorney. Her anthropological experience includes archaeological field and lab seasons in Peru (Moche Origins Project, Directed by Brian Billman) and Italy, ethnographic fieldwork and research in Egypt, and a semester long ethnographic project for the Burch Field Research Seminar (UNC-Chapel Hill) in Manteo, NC. She has worked for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, the New England Innocence Project, the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology, and completed coursework in Art and Antiquities Law with the University of San Diego School of Law in Florence, Italy. Her current research interests include the role of militarism in state formation and collapse, paleopathology, skeletal trauma, physical manifestations of interpersonal conflict in state level societies (violence), Andean and Peruvian archaeology, bioarchaeology, political violence, and legal anthropology (especially cross-cultural laws concerning transgressions and deviant behaviors).
Danielle Kurin. danielle.s.kurin@vanderbilt.edu
Bioarchaeology; Cultural modification of the body; Ancestor worship and mortuary rituals; Violence; Identity and community studies; Peruvian Andes.
Danielle graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2005 with an AB (magna cum laude) in Anthropology and a concentration in Hispanic Studies. Her honors thesis, Multiethnicity in the Eastern Valleys: A Bioarchaeological Study of a Prehistoric Bolivian Mortuary Community, involved the conservation and analysis of Pre-Inkan mummies from museum collections in Cochabamba, and Sucre, Bolivia. Now working in Peru, Danielle’s dissertation research utilizes human remains associated with the Chanka society (AD 1000-1400) to better understand the nature and character of identity-based violence during periods of post-imperial collapse. She currently co-directs a small bioarchaeological project in the department of Apurimac, in the south-central Peruvian highlands, and is a visiting lecturer in Anthropology at the Universidad Technologica de los Andes-Andahuaylas. Danielle’s commitment to undergraduate teaching has been recognized with awards by both the Department of Anthropology and the College of A&S at Vanderbilt. Her primary research interests include ethnogenesis and ethnocide, social memory, cultural modification of the body, mortuary practices, and identity and community studies. She has held internships at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and participated in fieldwork in Virginia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Matt Velasco. matthew.c.velasco@vanderbilt.edu
Bioarchaeology; Taphonomy; Paleodemography; Mortuary ritual; Chavin; Andes.
Matt graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 2008 with a BA in Anthropological Sciences and completed a Senior Honors Thesis entitled “Understanding Post-Chavin Mortuary Behavior: A Taphonomic Analysis of Human Remains from Chavin de Huantar, Peru.” In addition to fieldwork and laboratory research at Chavin, he has participated in archaeological investigations at the Paleolithic site of Chez-Pinaud (Jonzac) in southwest France. His research interests include skeletal morphology, ancient health, the peopling of the New World, and secondary burial in the Andes.
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT ADVISEES (Past & Present)
Alysha Tribbett (2009-2010). 
“Bioarchaeological Insights on Dental Health and Diet after the Fall of the Wari Empire in the Peruvian Andes”
Ellen Lofaro (2008-2009). “Degenerative Joint Disease in the Middle Mississippian Arnold Site from Nashville, Tennessee”
Where is she now? Ellen is an anthropology (bioarch) graduate student at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Emily Sharp (2007-2008). “Working Hard or Hardly Working? A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Osteoarthritis in a Post-Imperial Andean Population”
Where is she now? Emily is the Staff Osteologist in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt Unviersity.
Sara Juegnst (2007-2008). “Reflections On Life Through Death: Negotiation and Conversion in the Mortuary Record of the Colca Valley of Peru” (Co-advised with Dr. Steve Wernke)
Where is she now? Sara is an anthropology (bioarch) graduate student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Ella Wilhoit (2007-2008). “El Museo de la Memoria para que no se Repita: Creating Memory and Community, Ayacucho, Peru”
Where is she now? Ella is an anthropology (ethnography) graduate student at Northwestern University.
Jane Wise (2006-2007). “Discovering Disease: A Portrait of Health at the Arnold Village, Middle Tennessee”
Where is she now? Jane is doing project management in a Legal Member Services Department at a firm in Washington, D.C.
Charisse Carver (2004-2005). “Zooarchaeological Analysis of Paleolithic Remains, France”
Where is she now? Charisse is an anthropology (bioarch) graduate student at Arizona State University.