Anthropology M.A. student Mallory Cox wins fellowship at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Mallory Cox, who is currently working toward her M.A. in the Department of Anthropology, has just received news that she has been selected to receive a short-term fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Mallory's innovative research into the detection of malarial biomarkers in archaeological skeletal remains has caught the eye of scholars at Yale, and now, in Panama. Working with a team of researchers at Yale's Peabody Museum, Mallory was able to isolate hemozoin crystals - a likely indicator of malarial infection - in long bones of individuals that lived and died in Puerto Rico centuries before the arrival of Columbus. Earlier this year, Mallory was invited to expand this research, which may help rewrite the history of malaria in the Americas, to STRI's collection of Panamanian remains. Mallory will depart this summer for three fully-funded months of research and experimentation at STRI, under the guidance of Drs. Richard Cooke and Stephanie Smith-Guzmán.