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Anthropology major Andrew Ozga spent his senior year in the basement of Lalumiere Hall, sorting through boxes of human skeletal remains and looking for clues to the past. Who were these people? How did they live? How did they die?
It started when he took a class from Norman Sullivan, Ph.D., an anthropology professor. For years, Sullivan has studied the remains of a 19th-century Milwaukee County almshouse cemetery, which is the largest skeletal collection ever exhumed in North America.
“That really sparked my interest,” Ozga says. “I worked in the bone lab, and it just clicked right away. I could see myself going on and doing something in this field for the first time.”
As part of class, students studied the bones, taking measurements and noting other features such as sutures, gun shot wounds and broken bones that never healed.
Ozga got so into it that he started coming in outside of class. Classmates Ben White and Tara Cepon joined him.
The trio has already co-authored a paper for a bioarcheology conference, and they’ll present at three more conferences this year. Ozga and White are also organizing a symposium on demography for the Central States Anthropology Society conference.
Next, they’ll do an inventory of all the grave goods found in the collection. Artifacts include engraved rings, rosaries, buttons and shoes.
“Seeing those kind of puts a face with the bones,” Ozga says. “It’s kind of like traveling back in time.”
The almshouse collection also inspired his senior thesis. He’s focusing on a condition called diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, which is a form of arthritis.
“It’s an ossification of some of the ligaments in the spine, and it causes, at times, four or five vertebrae to fuse together,” he explains. “It’s really present in this population because of all the manual labor that people did.”
Ozga is grateful for the research experience, especially since he’s bound for grad school.
“Working under Dr. Sullivan has just made me like this field even more,” he says. “And the research aspect of it has made grad school that much more accessible.”
Life Cycle: From Birth to Death
- Unraveling the mysteries of proteins
- Protecting brittle bones
- Understanding the damaged brain
- The lungs: more than gas exchange
- The mind-body connection
- Preserving family peace
- Bringing clarity to delirium
- Protecting muscles on and off Earth
Improving the Human Condition
Studying Our World
Ethics & social justice
- Keeping business honest
- Of humans and cyborgs
- Journalism, ethics and the law
- Punishing corporate crime
- Dissecting financial fraud
- Scrutinizing elder law
Student Research
Interdisciplinary Research
Quick Facts About Marquette
| Identity: | Catholic, Jesuit, private |
| Established: | 1881 |
| Location: | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Undergraduate: | 8,048 |
| Postgraduate: | 3,500 |
| Campus: | Urban, 80 acres |
| Athletics: | 14 NCAA Division I teams (Big East Conference) |
| Colors: | Blue and Gold |
