In the summer of 2019, AAA had the honor of welcoming two new interns to Washington, D.C.
Alexandra Seeman is a senior at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she is studying anthropology with a concentration in archaeology. While interning with the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) of the Naval History and Heritage Command, Alexandria had the opportunity to inventory countless artifacts from the CSS Georgia—everything from glass to lead grapeshots! For an upcoming survey project in the Great Lakes region, she also read Coast Guard logs and pinpointed coordinates of aircraft crashes that have now been submerged for over 70 years.
Sylvia Wilson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2019 with a B.A. in Anthropology with Special Honors, and a B.A. in French. She interned at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage where she authored “The Sonic Landscape of Benin: Music from Smithsonian Folkways,” an article published on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival website which explores traditional Beninois musical genres. She also created educational materials and several lesson plans to accompany the Benin program for the Folklife Festival, as well as provided research support to festival curators.
At the AAA, both Alexandria and Sylvia utilized public databases to help develop an internal catalogue of minority-serving institutions to advance the association’s outreach to underrepresented communities. They also created outlines of educator workshops designed to provide instructional support to K-12 teachers seeking to incorporate anthropology and archaeology in their classrooms.
These activities would not be possible without the donations of members and AAA supporters!You too can help create pathways to our field and accelerate the careers of promising anthropology students by making a contribution to support our Internship program at www.americananthro.org/giveback.