3rd Freshman Seminar Colloquia

On November 19th, 2009, we had Dr. Fatimah Jackson come out and speak on the Importance of Interdisciplinary Approaches in African American Studies (the How and Why).
A little background info on her:

• She is a Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute of African American Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• She was previously a Professor of Applied Biological Anthropology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
• She is one of the most important scientists studying the origins of humanity, and was one of the scientists who helped map the human genome.
• She was the coordinator for genetics research for the African Burial Ground Project in New York City.
• She has published over 30 research articles.
• Received her B.A. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University.
• She has studied and used research from geography, molecular and population genetics, ethnography, demography, history, evolutionary biology, bioethics, toxicology, epidemiology, and public health and integrated these data in a biocultural anthropological context.
• Dr. Jackson is a scientist who seeks to solve real-life problems in the African-American community, including environmental health, cancer health disparities, and hypertension-related issues.
• In 2002, Dr. Jackson co-founded the first human DNA bank in Africa (based at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon) with the aim of changing the way that anthropological genetic research is done on the African continent (moving away from the colonial approach), enhancing local infrastructure and expertise, and dramatically improving the potential for scientific understanding of the interactions of genotypes and environmental factors in producing specific phenotypes (by providing a local context for data analysis and interpretation).

Some of her main points of her presentation:

• Ethnogenetic Layering (EL) needs to be used as a tool to incorporate data from diverse fields in addition to important research issues
• Human hetereogenetic and bicultural variability present a challenge to classical racial stratification models of epidemiology and public health
• New approaches needed in order to comprehensively capture the nuance of human biodiversity  as it relates to health
• We need to expand and acknowlege diversity as a whole among us
• New models must contain relevant cultural behaviorial diversity, genetic variation, non-genetic biological differences and be contextualized by appropriate  biological linage historics
• Enzymes vay among different groups of people

Though I could not stay long, I think she started off doing a great job of her presentation. However, I do feel like a presentation to this depth should not have been made mandatory to all freshman seeing that it could not hold the attention spann of those not at all interested in the biological differences between diverse groups of people.