Picture of the author of this particular blog post, Amber Cooper, who is wearing a white knit hat and a red sweater with glasses. — Profile picture of the lovely author of this particular blog post, Amber Cooper.

Hi!

My name is Amber Cooper, and I am currently the Preservation and Binding Assistant here at the University of Arkansas Libraries! Every quarter from now on, I’m going to be giving you an insight into how I got into conservation, my adventures (or misadventures!) in conservation here at the University of Arkansas, the world of conservation at large, and anything in-between!

How it all started…

I started college wanting to become a biological anthropologist. My first internship (called SOAR or Summer Opportunities in Anatomy Research) was during the summer of my freshman year at the University of North Texas at Fort Worth, TX. This internship was geared towards first-generation students, but I still consider myself lucky that I got it. I didn’t know much about the complexity of internship applications; I didn’t even know what a cover letter should look like, but I was full of enthusiasm and invigorated at the opportunity to potentially have my first step into academia. So the instant that I learned about this internship, I applied for it, and wrote a passionate paragraph-sized cover letter, and sent it on its merry way! It just happened that it was the middle of the night when I learned about the internship, as I was scrolling through my phone, looking at other anthropology internships. It also just so happened that I didn’t have my computer on me, so my ardent plea of a cover letter was written on my phone. Needless to say, I was surprised when I got the email stating my acceptance, but they mentioned that they felt like they could really help me grow academically with their internship, and grow I did!

So, with that background, it’s obvious how out-of-the-loop I was to academia…but my SOAR internship completely changed that. I learned about how to make a cover letter, a CV, how to format an academic poster, and how to avoid the Texas heat in the height of summer (the last being undoubtedly the most important lesson I learned). Needless to say, if it wasn’t for this internship, I think I probably would’ve had a harder time making it through the rest of college and my other internships.

My next internship was very similar to SOAR; it was called InSTInCT (Inclusive Student Training in Collections and field-based Topics) and was based in Austin, Texas (I again had to weather the heat, but it was worth it). This time around I was more focused on evolutionary biology. There were also similar training classes for CV development and excursions to local museums. Since it was after the height of COVID, it was all the more exciting being able to roam around campus freely.

Please enjoy some photos from my first two internships below, and if you’re curious about the academic posters I made for the internships (and for my honors thesis defense), those are linked at the end of the blog!

Biological Anthropology

Biological anthropology is the study of human evolution. It can involve various other disciplines, such as: Anatomy & Physiology, Evolutionary Biology, Paleontology, Archaeology, and many more!

A photo of me and the poster I made next to my mentor for my SOAR internship, Dr. Maddux — This is me with my mentor, Dr. Maddux, alongside the poster I created for my SOAR internship

Image of me looking at a Homo naledi skeleton at the Perot museum in Dallas during my SOAR internship — This is a photo of me looking at a *Homo naledi* skeleton on display at the Perot museum in Dallas during my SOAR internship

A photo of 2 Anolis lizard dentaries (jaws) in a Petri-dish container with labeling on it that states: "TC1, MC37, Unit 1, II/8, 12 May 1998, full dentaries, anolis -AC" — This is an example of the size of lizard jaws that I would measure during my InSTInCT internship

A photo of me (I am wearing glasses with a collared crop shirt and twin buns, and I am holding a lizard jaw in a container) and my fellow interns (left: Jaylin Knight, a woman in with a headband and glasses, wearing a multicolored shirt and holding reptile bones in a container, center: Vivian Pham, a woman wearing a thick strapped blouse and brown pants, holding reptile bones in a glass container) — These lovely women are my fellow interns during my InSTInCT internship, who I still talk to to this day (Left: Jaylin Knight; Center: Vivian Pham)

You might be wondering when cultural heritage conservation is going to come into play, well now it is. Towards my senior year as I was finishing up my Honors thesis, I started looking at potential careers that biological anthropology might relate to. I didn’t really want to be a professor (not that there’s anything wrong with teaching, I’m just not the type), so I thought I might try my hand at museum work. Cut to, my internship at the UARK Museum, where I got to look into how museums operate, how exhibit curation and design works, and where I first learned about conservation. My mentor and I were discussing different types of careers that are common in museums, and conservation was one of them. Through that conversation, my love for conservation began (see what I did there?)!

After the museum internship, I had one more semester left in college, and now I had to make the most of it. How was I going to get any experience in conservation with the time I had left? I had spent most of my undergraduate career focusing on biological anthropology, so I could enter a PhD program without issues, but now that I found conservation, I needed to prepare.

Funnily enough, at this point, I still didn’t know we had a Preservation department within the libraries, so the closest that I thought I could be was working as a work-study in Special Collections (this is because a lot of universities house their preservation/conservation departments within Special Collections). While working in Special Collections, our library was going through renovations, and I finally crossed paths with the Preservation team, hard at work, boxing rare oversized books. Working up all the courage my little introverted heart could muster, I introduced myself to them, and got to know that they were looking for a part-timer! Needless to say, my mind at that moment was buzzing, it’s like the world opened up for me, giving me all the signs that this was the right path, even more so, when I actually got the job.

Now, here I am, going on adventures in preservation, learning, applying (and sometimes failing) new techniques, and I’m always ready for more! I hope you’ll join me on my other adventures, as there will be many more tales to tell!

To hold you over till next time, here is a photo of my cat Keanu (yes, he is named after Keanu Reeves) and I after my graduation!

Goodbye for now!

Photo of Amber Cooper in her graduation cap and gown, with a white sash signifying the honors college. Amber is holding her cat Keanu, who is a brown and black tabby cat.

Here are the results from my internships and a snapshot at my Honors thesis defense presentation. I hope you enjoy!

Academic poster about how nasal shape changes based on environment in humans from West Africa and Papua New Guinea. — This is the first academic poster. I made this as a freshman in the summer of 2019. It talks about how I compared the nasal morphology (i.e., the shapes of noses) of humans from hot and humid climates, specifically from West Africa and Papua New Guinea.

Academic poster analyzing the morphology of Anolis lizards from the Turks and Caicos. — The next internship I had was in the summer of 2021 (after COVID). This academic poster is the result of studying the shape and size of jaws from *Anolis* lizards from the Turks and Caicos.

This is what the main theme of my exhibit was about. It reads: "The Circle of Life through Culture. Biodiversity is the extensive variety of life in the environment. It is an important part of a healthy ecosystem and it is evident in every species on the planet. As humans, we have an unique position to show how biodiversity is expressed in our culture through material goods." — This is the main theme of my exhibit I designed during my museum internship. The next photos are separated into the “Culture” side and the “Nature” side, to showcase how life becomes art.

This is the subheading for the nature section. It reads: "Biodiversity in Action: These four animals [armadillos, squirrels, bats, and mice] are commonly seen in people's daily lives, but they are actually incredibly diverse species that are specifically adapted to their environment. — This is the subheading for the “Nature” section.

…This shows the final product of the “Nature” section that was displayed for my exhibit.

This is the subheading for the culture section. It reads "Nature vs. Culture: Through our material culture, people display only a portion of the immense biodiversity that is present in the natural world. This slice of biodiversity reveals how people negotiate with nature to create culture." — This is the subheading for the “Culture” section.

…This shows the final product of how the “Culture” section was displayed during my exhibit. (P.S. You might notice the background doesn’t fit the glass case, that was noticed and fixed by the time of the actual exhibit opened.) UARK Museum Exhibit (culture)

Slideshow title page of a honors thesis defense on the topic of primates and smell, and how that relates to a specific section of cranial morphology called the cribriform plate. There is also pictures of various species of primates. — Before I graduated from the University of Arkansas, I had to give my Honors thesis defense. For this defense, I compared the size and shape of a structure in the skull called the cribriform plate. This is the bony structure that the olfactory nerve rests on, so I studied how that bony structure is different in various species of primates.

Powerpoint slide explaining what the cribriform plate is, along with an image of the human skull that shows where the cribriform plate is. The slide states: "Definition: the bony border between the nasal cavity and the olfactory bulb. Function: It provides pathways for olfactory nerves to transmit signals to the olfactory bulb." — This slide describes what the Cribriform plate is and its function

Powerpoint slide explaining the hypotheses tested for my honors thesis, along with examples of 3D renderings of 3 animal's skulls and their processed cribriform plate (the animals are the tree shrew- an outgroup, a West Aftrican Potto- a strepsirrhine, and a Cotton-top Tamarin- a haplorrhine). The slide states: How does the cribriform plate (CP) vary across primate clades, and how does this variation relate to primate social and dietary behaviors? H1: Strepsirrhines will have relatively larger cribriform plates than haplorrhines. H2: Frugivores will have larger CPs than folivores or omnivores; this trend will extend across and within clades. H3: Primates in multi-male/multi-female social systems will have larger CPs. H4: nocturnal primates will have larger CPs than diurnal primates; this will extend across and within clades." — These are the hypotheses I tested for my honors thesis

Powerpoint slide detailing my materials and methods for my honors thesis. It includes a phylogenetic tree that shows how each species (haplorrhines, strepsirrhines, and the outgroups) represented are related evolutionarily. There is also a 3D rendering of the processed cribriform plate for a male and female M. murinus (Grey mouse lemur) to show that there are no significant sex differences. The slide states: "Sample size: 58 adult specimens, 20 haplorrhine species (n=40); 6 strepsirrhine species (n=12); 3 mammalian outgroups species (n=6). 1 female and male per species. No significant sex differences (plate CPSA p=0.840; margin CPSA p=0.533). Micro Computed Tomography (microCT) scans from Morphosource.org and Terhune lab." — This is the Materials & Methods section, where I explained my sample size and where I got my microCT scans from

PowerPoint slide of the discussions and conclusions for my honors thesis. The images on this slide include a photo of a gorilla next to a small primate (which is about the size of one of the gorilla's fingers); a photo of an Aye-Aye primate, along with the 3D rendering of a processed Aye-Aye cribriform plate, and a photo of a tarsier, along with the 3D rendering of a processed tarsier cribriform plate; and lastly a photo of two primates, one is holding a leaf, and the other is a juvenile primate and is holding the adult. The slide states: "Size matters: the largest CP averages were with the largest primates. When adjusted for body size, some smaller primates have larger CPs. Variation: There is a consistent pattern of strepsirrhines being different from haplorrines (H1). Olfactory System: CP is not significantly patterned to behavioural traits in my dataset. Olfaction is utilized for navigating environments." — This is the overarching results of my Honors thesis findings