by Sandra Huffman ‘86
The Joan M. Thuebel ’52 Earthwatch Award is presented annually to students and faculty members and provides each recipient with a fully funded field research expedition hosted by the international nonprofit organization Earthwatch. The award includes expedition fees, travel, and lodging, made possible by a generous donation from Joan Thuebel ’52 who has participated in 27 Earthwatch expeditions. “My alternative to not being able to contribute to expeditions is to be able to send people to do projects I would like to do and can’t right now,” she shared.
Earthwatch offers a wide variety of expeditions across scientific, archaeological, anthropological, and other fields. The 2024 award recipients discovered ancient societies in Portugal, followed forest owls in Utah, and unearthed ancient history in Italy.
Christine Mayer ’07, assistant professor of environmental studies, said she saw some amazing culture and history through her Earthwatch expedition. She traveled to Portugal to work on an archaeological dig in the historic town of Santarém, one of the oldest in central Portugal. Mayer was on a team working in both field excavation and laboratory analysis, contributing directly to ongoing research efforts regarding the transition between the Mesolithic and Neolithic societies from hunter-gatherers to farmers. As volunteer researchers, Mayer’s group worked each morning, digging and scraping with a hand trowel, paintbrush, and dustpan. Then, each afternoon, they would go to the village community space they used as a laboratory where they would spend time cleaning, sorting, and packaging artifacts to send to artifact experts.
Erin Roszkowiak ’25, a veterinary nursing major, with minors in chemistry and biology, who will attend veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, traveled to Utah to work with owls. The purpose of her expedition was to determine what climate change has done to plant-related owls. The trip involved surveying owls, capturing owls with mist nets, measuring habitat, recording the location of tree cavities, and
monitoring nests. According to Roszkowiak, it also involved a lot of hiking as each day meant traveling to more owl nests, with some nests six miles away from each other. What she liked the best was knowing she was helping the owls without treating them. She said, “It was a different side of science that I’ve never seen before and it really opened my eyes to see that we can’t treat wildlife, because if you do, they can’t be part of the natural evolution.”
Zeke Changuris ’24MH, a graduate student in humanities, had the opportunity to do an archaeological excavation in southern Tuscany, specifically the Roman settlement of Poggio de Molino. The area was occupied as early as the 2nd century B.C. and went into its last stage of habitation in the 5th century. It was a fortress, it was a fish sauce workshop, and it was a villa, Changuris shared. He said, “It was really interesting to see people from all walks of life participating in this dig because we all shared something in common—we all had a passion for history.”
