Between the late 1990s through early 2010s, the image of the Asian American became increasingly visible within American popular culture. Using children’s historical media within this period, this paper examines how Asian Americans in the United States are positioned as simultaneous citizens and perpetual foreigners. More specifically, it will analyze American Girl’s 1970s series of Julie Albright and her best friend Ivy Ling released in 2007 and their accompanying illustrated books, accessories, and other visual materials to discuss the depiction of Asian Americans. Despite being set in early 1970s San Francisco and heavily including SF Chinatown which was a hub for multi-ethnic and racial activism, Ivy Ling was not connected to the main character’s exploration of second-wave feminism and activism of this decade. As Ivy Ling continues to be the only Asian American Historic Character within the American Girl brand, her presence, while limited, reflects the complex space Asian Americans occupy in what it means to be American. 

While Asian American studies have previously explored ideas of assimilation, citizenship, and revolutionary thought, much of the research is focused on pre-1980s politics and attitudes. While the idea of the perpetual foreigner and the post-1970s establishment of the model minority myth has been explored—the ways in which it was transformed in the changed political climate of the 1990s, particularly around immigration policies and the War on Terror, has not yet undergone extensive analysis. Furthermore, there is not much existing work using art historical and anthropological research methods on contemporary children’s media at the turn of the 21st century, especially for Asian Americans. 

Many private collections are in possession of human remains categorized as ‘legacy skeletal material’; remains with unknown backgrounds or missing provenance. Identification allows for students and researchers to recognize the humanity of these neglected classroom materials. Anthropometric measurements (quantitative and qualitative) were collected for two nearly complete human skeletons that are part of BSU’s Department of Anthropology collection. These findings have been used to piece together possible identification for their sex, ancestry, and age at time of death. Signs of disease and environmental conditions as evidence of living conditions were also observed. It was determined that both skeletons were males of Eurasian or Indo-European descent, and both individuals appear to have died around age 50 (40-65) based on cranial sutures, dental wear, and sternal rib ends. Both skeletons show many pathologies, including signs of post-mortem de-fleshing, arthritis, non-fused sacral vertebrae, enlarged cranial vault, nutrient deficiencies, and rounded rib cage producing a barrel chested appearance. The results of ancestral identification on the two skeletons are consistent with the origins of many teaching skeletons acquired in the early part of the 20th century.  The pathologies reflect environmental conditions, strenuous physical labor, and possible post-mortem cultural patterns. Human remains deserve to be handled with care, empathy, and respect. The goal is to build demographics for the legacy skeletons housed by the Anthropology Dept. at BSU in hopes of reinstating the identities of people that have been lost due to historical negligence.

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• Stories That Connect Us: Expanding Access to Intergenerational Digital Storytelling as a Community-Based Response to Address Loneliness, Golen, Summer, UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A34
• Food Freedom: A Critical Community Engagement Project In Food Access Programming, OBrien, Abby, UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A35
• My Toolbox Journal: Mental Health Tool for Individuals Who Have Graduated From Temporary Therapeutic Services, Alcala-Vargas, Daniela Marie, UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A43
• Empowering Patients to Find Living Kidney Donors Through Digital Outreach, Zygiel, Nellie Teresa, UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A44
• Improving Health Care for Patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Through Undergraduate Education, Velez, Alyssa, UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A32

The presence of Linear Enamel Hypoplasias (LEHs) in bioarchaeological remains has given researchers an indication of morbidity and mortality in past populations. Stress indicators like LEHs can appear due to nutritional deficiencies, periods of famine, infectious diseases, and other factors. Due to this correlation researchers have been able to connect LEH incidence to early age-at-death in past populations. However, some researchers have found no significant connection between presence of LEHs and earlier age-at-death. This conflicting evidence suggests that LEHs may not be an accurate indicator of health stress. Other stress indicators like periostitis, cribra orbitalia (CO), and porotic hyperostosis (PH) have also been used to assess morbidity and mortality in bioarchaeological research with positive results. In some cases, researchers have found a correlation between the aforementioned stress indicators and early mortality while finding no correlation between LEHs and early mortality. This may suggest that some stress indicators are more accurate at predicting early age-at-death than others. It also may indicate that a combination of stress indicators on a skeleton may contribute to early mortality more so than one stress indicator alone. Ultimately, this research seeks to evaluate the accuracy of LEHs and other stress indicators at predicting earlier age-at-death in a Medieval Italian population. Through this research a better understanding of health in the past can be attained.

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• Microbes and Microplastics: How Microplastics Affect Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria, Speckhard, Rachael, Quinsigamond Community College, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A6
• Reforming Environmental Review for Housing Production: A Comparative Analysis of CEQA and MEPA, Susskind, Eli B., UMass Amherst, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A60
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The objective of this research is to examine the skeletal, cultural, and ethical implications of cultural body modifications and their effects on the human skeleton within their broader social contexts. By analyzing the physical effects, historical origins, and social significance of each practice, this study aims to challenge misconceptions, reduce judgment, and deepen understanding of why body modifications were practiced in the past and continue today. This study draws on archaeological evidence, historical records, peer-reviewed literature, and case studies to examine cultural body modification practices. Additionally, ethnographic data is collected through a Google Forms survey distributed to anthropology students, gathering perspectives on both historical and modern body modifications which are compared to cultural meanings to identify any differences. Although this research is ongoing, preliminary findings suggest that college students demonstrate varying levels of knowledge about historical and modern body modifications. Initial survey responses indicate that many individuals view body modification as both a form of cultural expression and a harmful practice. These findings highlight an important gap in the understanding of similar motivations between historical and modern body modification. This research emphasizes the shared motivations including identity, beauty, status, and belonging, that underlie both past and present body modification practices, helping to reduce judgement and misconceptions. 

The Atlantic Forest region of Brazil is heavily deforested, with more than 85% of its original habitat cleared since European colonization, leaving the remaining forests highly fragmented. This biome is home to an incredible amount of biodiversity, hosting 90 endemic mammal species, 24 of which are primates. These primate populations are susceptible to habitat loss and endangerment due to the immense urbanization and deforestation that have devastated the Atlantic Forest. With such issues, humans and primates in this region are increasingly coming into contact. Without direct exposure to human-wildlife relationships in this region, we must examine how different types of human disturbance are associated with the presence of primate populations; species occurrence data from both community and research sources can inform conservation efforts. We created an ArcGIS map of the Atlantic Forest Biome, overlaying primate species occurrence data, highways, urban centers, and protected areas to analyze where the highest human-primate interactions may occur. We analyzed the data using kernel density and point-pattern analyses, and suitability modeling to identify areas of high relevance. We found that primate occurrences are common alongside federal highways since their presence is more easily reported. Such occurrences near roads and urban centers produce a prevalence of vehicle-caused animal deaths on Brazilian highways. Further analysis will yield more comprehensive results on areas that would benefit the most from ecological corridors. The goal of this project is to inform policy and conservation efforts to reduce the negative results of habitat fragmentation in the Atlantic Forest.

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• Ground Truthing Stone Walls in the Cascades Conservation Area, Sharon, Kaia, Worcester State University, Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM, Auditorium, A37
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• Synteny and Genetic Conservation of the Nicotinamide Amidase Gene in the Drosophilawillistoni and Drosophila bipectinata Species as Compared to Drosophila melanogaster, Lacina, Colbie , Quinsigamond Community College, Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A10
• How Excessive Land Use Can Alter Aquatic Habitats, Szukala, Nathan Paul, Holyoke Community College, Poster Session 5, 3:15 PM - 4:00 PM, Auditorium, A51
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Baboons are known to have strong dietary flexibility as they need to respond to seasonal fluctuation in dietary resources. To examine this further, behavioral and dietary data was collected from a habituated troop of Kinda baboons (Papio kindae) in Kasanka National Park (KNP), Zambia for one year. KNP experiences three seasons (cool/dry, hot/dry, and warm/wet). After analysis, 95 foods were identified and divided into eight categories, including fruits, pods, corms, leaves, vertebrates, invertebrates, sap, and “other” items. Monthly and seasonal diets were quantified as the percentage of each food category. 

To examine multivariate patterns in diet, we conducted principal components analysis using the diet data to identify seasonal and monthly dietary variation. The first five principal components (PC) explained approximately 85% of the total dietary variation, with PC1 and PC2 accounting for 53%. PC1 represents a shift from pod and corm-dominated diets to fruit, leaf, flower, and invertebrate-rich diets, distinguishing dry season feeding from wet season feeding. PC2 further separated grass seed and corm consumption from fruit and flower intake, capturing dietary shifts within seasons.

Interestingly, ANOVA results indicate that seasonality significantly affects PC1 (p =0.0018); however, it does not significantly affect PC2 (p = 0.123). This suggests that seasonal changes influence the primary dietary composition pattern (PC1), while secondary dietary composition remains stable across seasons. These findings emphasize the dietary flexibility of Kinda baboons and indicate that future research is needed to better understand the diet variation and feeding behavior of primates over seasonal time scales.