With Major Research Instrumentation support, Sophia Mavroudas and her collaborators will purchase an integrated microscopy imaging and data analysis suite that consists of a Leica DM6M compound microscope and Leica M205C Stereoscope, both with internal cameras that are connected to a central workstation with an associated Leica Aperio ScanScope CS2 slide scanner. This will enhance Texas State University's research and outreach programs in forensic anthropology, biology, and bioarchaeology. This microscopy imaging suite is a user-friendly system that will impact the large group of students and researchers, from the undergraduate through to the postdoctoral level, who are part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS) at Texas State University, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). As an asset of FACTS, this equipment will foster synergistic collaborative research and interactive teaching. The addition of the microscopy suite will elevate the new PhD in Applied Anthropology Program and enhance faculty and student federally funded research in forensic anthropology, biology, and archaeology. The associated activities include the scientific training of women and underrepresented groups in histology and surface imaging, undergraduate STEM training, graduate student research and professionalization, and the expansion of FACTS workshops to include histology and surface imaging.
The microscopy suite will allow for fast imaging of a variety of samples from 1x-1000x at one workstation which consists of the DM6M compound microscope, M205C stereosmicroscope, and Aperio ScopScan CS 2. This will be used to capture evidence from skeletal trauma, zooarchaeological samples, and artifact assemblages. Combined with existing FACTS resources, this equipment will support innovative experimental studies including controlled human decomposition experiments that can model the microscopic diagenesis of human bone throughout the post-mortem interval, as well as macroscopic trauma investigation from vulture scavenging. The associated stereoscope with imaging software will also allow for novel and detailed 3D modeling of skeletal trauma and pathology from documented collections as well as forensic casework and bioarchaeological samples. The acquisition of this equipment will help build and make available to researchers the first ever referential catalog of histological human variation from the rapidly expanding Texas State University Donated Skeletal Collection (TXSTDSC). The microscopy system will enable FACTS to build on existing research programs that focus on bone histology in various contexts including the investigation of human vs nonhuman bone differentiation, histological mammal species identification, human ageing, dental histology season-of-death estimation, dental histology studies of pathology and stress, the application of GIS technology to study bone histomorphology, and histological human variation.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
