We recently asked our Head of School Dr Tatyana Humle about life in the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent.
Here’s what she had to say:
What makes you proud to work at your School?
What makes me most proud of our school is our students, their engagement, their curiosity and their initiative, the impact of our research on understanding humans and their relationship with the environment and our commitment to environmental sustainability and climate change. Our mission is understanding a changing world. In this regard, we aim to inspire and stimulate learning, curiosity, and critical thinking and not to shy away from challenging one’s assumptions in our students through lectures, discussions and debates during seminars, and more practical teaching through field trips and lab classes and other events we organise within the school or our research centres.
What are the facilities and labs like?
In the Marlowe building where we are located on the Canterbury campus of the University of Kent, we have cosy communal spaces where students and staff gather informally. Our School also offers students and staff excellent facilities for teaching and research purposes. These are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and resources, including a 5 tonnes micro-CT scanner in our new Imaging Centre for the Life Sciences. We have dedicated laboratories for animal postcranial evolution, ecology, ethnobiology, human osteology, genetics, virtual palaeoanthropology, and visual anthropology. Our teaching spaces are fully equipped with audio-visual capabilities and our computer suite is furnished with 32 PCs with HD resolution and premium hardware.
How has technology affected the course/discipline recently?
When it comes to research, technology has contributed to amazing advancements in the field of anthropology, conservation, and geography. We are talking about here about generating novel insights into the lives of our fossil ancestors and understanding how they behaved, what they ate, and how they died – all via micro-CT scanning, geometric morphometric, and stable isotope analysis of their remains, and photogrammetric and/or LiDAR analysis of the depositional circumstances. Or, how we can most effectively and non-invasively survey and monitor wildlife (for example through the use of camera trapping, drones, and e-DNA), track their movements, and understand how they respond to environmental change. New innovations in machine learning and predictive models are also allowing us to track the illegal wildlife trade, identifying hot spots, points of origin and trafficking routes. Satellite imagery resolution has also made leaps and bounds in recent years opening up huge opportunities for better understanding environmental change and how humans are shaping their surroundings. Despite all the challenges that COVID has presented us with, it has also stimulated advancements when it comes to the use of a range of online and virtual platforms for interacting with and teaching students, undertaking research, and disseminating information. The capabilities of technologies such as Microsoft Teams (and the myriad of supporting apps developed to work with it), Google’s Coggle, PearDeck’s interactive PowerPoint plug-ins, and more have all enhanced our students’ learning experience and our ability to address research questions which were previous untapped and remained unanswered.
What are some examples of roles that graduates have gone onto taking up?
We have inspiring alumni stories from around the world, and a diverse alumni network which is also essential in helping current students build their own network for their future careers. We aim to provide students with a wide range of tools and skills to equip them to follow their career aspirations. Many of our graduates have careers in the environment or conservation whether in the NGO, government or private sector addressing first-hand climate change and sustainability issues. Others have gone on to be forensic scientists, lab technicians, and schoolteachers, and some remain to pursue higher degrees – either aiming for specialist consultancy work in their chosen discipline, or a career in academia.