Current Students
Cameron Munley
Cameron is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. She graduated from Wake Forest University with degrees in Environmental Science (B.A.) and Anthropology (B.A.). Cameron is an anthropological archaeologist who is interested in zooarchaeology and historical ecology. She is also interested in ecological conservation and public education. Cameron is currently researching the exploitation patterns of coral reef fishes by past Native Americans living in the Caribbean. Most of her research is focused within the Caribbean Ceramic Age (~500 B.C.- 1500 A.D.). Cameron is currently in the process of completing her master’s degree and will then pursue a Ph.D.
Cristina Oliviera
Former Students
Aaron Ellrich
Aaron is a second year Museum Studies graduate student at the University of Florida. He holds a B.S. in Anthropology (with honors) and a B.A. in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. Aaron has experience in exhibitions, collection management, 3-D scanning and printing, and archaeology. His research interests include collaborative museology, tribal museums, heritage tourism, and historical trauma and unresolved grief. He is currently writing a history of the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum, located on the Big Cypress reservation in South Florida. After completing his M.A., Aaron plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology.
Jennifer M. Haney
Jennifer holds an M.A. degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree specializing in Paleoethnobotany at Penn State. Jennifer’s research interests focus on the maintenance of anthropogenic environments associated with subsistence economies, plant domestication, resource choices, and issues of sustainability. For her dissertation research, she is analyzing charred wood remains collected from the Pineland Site Complex in order to examine choices of fuel-wood use, including changes through time, extraction impacts, and sustainability.
Katie Matthew
Katie holds an B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Montana and is currently pursuing a M.A degree in Museum studies at the University of Florida. Her focus is in collection management specializing in textiles. Most recently, she has been working with the Seminole Doll collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Previously Katie worked for the National Park Service and the United States Forest Service.
Brittany Mistretta
Brittany is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida, and working towards certificates in Museum Studies and Digital Humanities. Natural history collections are invaluable to her research, which draws on human behavioral ecology, biodiversity studies, zooarchaeological analysis, and anthropological perspectives to examine human-environmental interactions during Pre-columbian periods in the Caribbean. For her dissertation, she is investigating how socio-economic networks are maintained through ceremonial center activities, including animal procurement, consumption, and disposal. Additional projects work toward expanding biodiversity datasets of extinct Caribbean fauna in museum collections. She also integrates 3D printing and digital technologies for science outreach and cultural heritage projects.
Allysha Winburn
Allysha is an Anthropology doctoral student at UF, where her Ph.D. research focuses on the interaction between age and activity on the skeletal degeneration of the hip joint. A Graduate Analyst at UF’s C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory (CAPHIL), she has also worked as a Forensic Anthropologist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory (JPAC-CIL) in Hawaii. She is currently conducting research at the FLMNH on the bioarchaeology of southwest Florida and the burial practices of the Calusa and other maritime peoples. Allysha holds a B.A. in Archaeological Studies from Yale and an M.A. in Anthropology from NYU.