n a m o W
of Science
Anthropology Professor Casts Aside Convention By Kathy Strickland
Hannah Marsh believes it’s important to know where you come from. But her family tree has much deeper roots than your typical genealogy.
the program had a bare-minimum bone collection, and students often had to compare and measure pictures of bones.
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“You can show pictures “You gotta know your all day, but it’s nothing cience wears relatives to understand like seeing it in person,” yourself,” Hannah, Hannah says, adding that pink pants and an associate professor the size of the Opportunity sparkly jewelry. of Anthropology at Grant was perfect for her Science is just a UCM, tells her students needs, which exceeded the when staging a “family departmental budget but way of thinking reunion” in UCM’s Rolla were not extensive enough about the world, F. Wood Building. She to appeal to an institution and it comes in lays out casts of humans’ like the National Science closest living relatives: the Foundation. “Having the any package. chimpanzee, followed by casts in hand is going to – Hannah Marsh the gorilla and then the be magical.” Associate Professor orangutan. “Comparing of Anthropology The Opportunity Grant our teeth, comparing even allowed Hannah to the size of our brains, comparing the offer a new course this fall called Human orientations of our skeletons because we Osteology, where students “take a deep dive move differently. All of this is incredibly into how we grow, heal and vary through important in understanding who we are time and space.” today and how these bones function for us the way they do.”
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A World of Wonder Hannah has always had an interest in the how and why of human history. Growing up the daughter of a geology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, she decided as a middle school student to follow in her father’s footsteps. “I realized that as a science professor I could continuously research and expand all of our knowledge about how the universe functions in the past, the present and the future,” Hannah says. “It feels like not growing up because you get to wonder for the rest of your life.” Throughout her undergraduate studies in anthropology and zoology, Hannah built a supportive network of colleagues and mentors. When she entered graduate school at a different university, however, she found herself alone. Her doctoral advisor discouraged her, but through drive, determination and the help of her previously established support group,
Hannah points out that, in humans, the leg bones are much longer than the arms, whereas chimpanzees’ arms and legs are similar in length because they use both to traverse the landscape. In contrast, she points to the arm bones of another ape, the gibbon, which are much longer than its legs because it moves by swinging through the trees. Instead of the long stride humans require to walk bipedally, other primates necessitate a longer arm span. Students are able to handle the durable bone casts and examine them side by side. This would not have been possible without a donor-funded Opportunity Grant through the UCM Alumni Foundation. Hannah applied for and was awarded a $5,000 grant to purchase more than 620 bones to be used at every Anthropology course level, from Human Prehistory to Forensic Anthropology. In the past,
University of Central Missouri Magazine
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