I’m heading out at the crack of dawn on Friday for a quick two-day trip to this year’s annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropology meetings (AAPAs). Of note is that this may be the last AAPA meetings ever! Fear not. This is not because the organization is ending, but because we are considering a formal name change to the organization, with the distinct possibility of moving past the antiquated “physical” designation and moving to a (in my view) more appropriate/accurate designation of “biological” anthropologists. That action will take place Friday night at the business meeting (oh boy!).
Fittingly, the work that I will be presenting this year, far from being “physical,” is of the “virtual” variety. Specifically, I’ll be sharing some of the pedagogical development I have been engaged in with colleagues and students here at Wellesley in the creation of a fully-immersive VR lab for studying human skeletal and fossil hominin material. I’ll be presenting this work as past of an education focused poster session on Saturday, but I’m also bringing along the computer equipment to actually set up the VR lab so that people can experience it for themselves (assuming I can commandeer the appropriate space in the conference center…). You can check out the poster at the link below:
I’m also eager for any feedback. If you have thoughts, fill out this form (thanks, in advance!).
