Categories
Member Spotlight

Student Spotlight: Mari Isa

Introducing PhD candidate Mari Isa!

Mariyam ‘Mari’ Isa is in her final year here at the MSUFAL, and while we will be sad to see her leave, we are excited for her future endeavors! Mari’s research focuses on blunt force trauma in the skull and femora. She studies how bones break to better understand fracture patterns encountered in forensic cases. Mari was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue this research and worked closely with Dr. Todd Fenton on his National Institute of Justice research grant. She received her bachelor and master’s degrees from Michigan State University and discovered forensic anthropology while working with Dr. Fenton. After finishing her M.A. in Anthropology, Mari decided to stay for her PhD because of the unique research opportunities through Dr. Fenton’s collaborative research with the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory at State.

Fig 1. Mari training Michigan State Police in grave excavation

When Mari started at MSU she had no idea what she wanted to do after graduation and did not expect to go into forensic anthropology. She started her undergraduate career working with Dr. Fenton in the Nubian Bioarchaeology Laboratory, which includes the Mis Island skeletal collection on loan from the British Museum. After working with bioarchaeological material, Dr. Fenton invited her to work in the MSUFAL on his NIJ project; this experience led her to a career in forensic anthropology. “Being around a busy forensic anthropology lab,” she says, “I got to see how things that fascinated me—the things you can learn from a person’s skeleton—can actually be applied to help restore a person’s identity.” Mari continued, saying “There is so much to learn, so much to be done to improve and develop methods, and I wanted to be one of the people who helped do that! It’s a privilege to work on these cases, to hold a person’s remains in your hands.” The most fulfilling experience in the field for Mari is working on forensic casework. She says that “search and recovery cases are usually really memorable! It’s a privilege to be able to apply our skills to help locate a person’s remains and start the process of identifying them and figuring out what happened to them. It’s also usually a fun and interesting time working with various law enforcement, death investigators, and pathologists. Every case is different so there’s always something new to learn and you never know what you might be doing.”

Fig 2. One of Mari’s favorite non-MSUFAL experiences is her summer fieldwork in Tuscany with current and former MSUFAL team members

Her favorite MSUFAL memory is the camaraderie and friendship built among the MSUFAL graduate students. “Some of my best memories include making silly door signs in the grad student office, Taco Tuesdays/Chipotlunch, and having life chats while working on tedious lab tasks.” Outside of the lab, Mari enjoys Van Atta’s, a greenhouse and flower shop here in the Lansing area. Anyone who has met Mari knows that plants are her pride and joy; counting the pots alone she has 14 office plants and 18 more at home! Her dream is to have her own indoor jungle. She also loves puzzles, playing violin, and generally catching up on sleep. In the warmer months she kayaks, hikes, and camps around Michigan. Mari’s advice to undergraduate students is to get out-of-the-classroom anthropological experiences and get involved with research through a professor. She says that getting familiar with the research process will help you figure out what does and does not interest you. These amazing opportunities have prepared Mari for her new position. 

Beginning this fall Mari will be an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Texas Tech University.

Congratulations, Mari! And good luck!

Fig 3. Chipotlunch with the MSUFAL

Authored by:  Micayla Spiros

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *