Title: 2 Students Dig Deep into Maltese, Romanian Culture in Summer Anthropology Research

Two Hoyas spent their summers abroad conducting anthropological research.

Jasmine Chen (C’27) traveled to Transylvania to study osteology and bioarchaeology in a medieval village, while Abbey Murray (C’27) studied Maltese social culture on the island of Gozo as part of an ethnographic field school.

The two students were both recipients of the Stapleton Award, an annual award given out by the Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts & Sciences. The Stapleton Award provides anthropology students up to $5,000 for an entire academic year to fund independent research, unpaid internships or professional experiences related to anthropology.

“The Stapleton Award is a fantastic opportunity for anthropology students to design, implement and carry out an extended fieldwork project, a chance for them to learn firsthand what it means to do anthropology, and perhaps most importantly, what it means to think about and see the world as an anthropologist,” said Andrew Bickford, chair of the Department of Anthropology.

Get to know Chen and Murray and the anthropological research they did abroad this summer.

Excavating History in Transylvania

For her Stapleton Award, Jasmine Chen (C’27) traveled to a tiny village in Transylvania.

In a countryside Chen likens to the “Sound of Music,” dotted with rolling green hills and red roofs, the junior analyzed human remains excavated from the ruins of a medieval church.

Chen took part in the Archaeotek Adult Osteology Research Workshop, a summer intensive that trains students in bioarchaeology and studies how major events in the 1600s and 1700s physically affected a local population of Szeklers, an ethnic minority group in Romania.

The topic is one Chen has long been interested in. She began studying anthropology in high school, and, through her own research rabbit holes, became interested in how a person’s environment affects their health. After transferring to Georgetown in 2025 from New York University, Chen has continued to deepen her understanding of anthropology.

In Transylvania, Chen learned how to identify every bone in the human body, even the smallest fragments. She spent the bulk of her days in a lab, washing and readying human remains for analysis, and reconstructing adult skeletons, which will be rehoused in a collection run by the descendant community.

Chen said she was initially nervous to work in such close proximity to human remains, but instead, found a reverence for the work.

“After studying anthropology and being surrounded by the people who this project most deeply affects, I felt empowered in some sense,” she said. “The more you learn about the importance of the work and how much we learn from these people, the better it is.”

As part of the workshop, Chen conducted an independent research project. Her group reconstructed an individual whose skeleton displayed skeletal dysplasia, a rarity among the population and in the broader bioarcheological field, she said. The discovery raised more questions about how the person was treated and what their lived experience was like. Chen’s supervisor encouraged the group to present their findings to the American Biological Anthropology Association next spring, which Chen hopes to do.

After her summer in Transylvania, Chen found a kinship with the community she studied and a desire to learn more.

“We’re all just trying to do our best to adjust to our environment, whether that’s social or geographic or physical,” she said. “I would really like to continue doing research on such topics.”

Studying Social Interactions in Malta

Abbey Murray (C’27) spent three weeks of her summer conducting independent ethnographic research on Gozo, the sister island to Malta’s main island in the heart of the Mediterranean.

She used her Stapleton Award to fund her participation in a field school located on Gozo that offers anthropology students and scholars the opportunity to pursue mini ethnographic research projects.

For her research, Murray initially wanted to examine tourist culture in Malta, diving into the complexities of the relationships and tensions between small business owners and visitors.

“Malta has a rich and deeply ingrained culture. The Maltese people are proud to be Maltese — and for good reason,” Murray said. “I was interested in that clash between tourists who sometimes come and do not appreciate the full culture here, and simply come for the beaches and the food. I wanted to see the depths that those relationships go to and what the true sentiments are.”

To study these interactions, Murray visited the beaches and waterfronts around Victoria, the main city on the island, to interview shopkeepers who ran everything from food trucks to craft stores and beach umbrella rentals.

Halfway through the program, Murray shifted her research to analyze social interactions in Malta more broadly, exploring themes such as masculinity and femininity, cultural identity and perception, youth and adulthood, and extractivism and neocolonialism.

This transition stemmed from a realization about the importance of ethics in anthropological research. She explained how, in a field that has historically encouraged a sole focus on one’s research goals during conversations in the field, it’s critical to form real relationships with the people and give back to the communities that share their experiences and knowledge that make up the research .

“I’ve learned a lot about the basis of being ethical in your work, and respecting a people and culture, and representing what you’re observing, what you’re seeing, as accurately and as unbiased as you can,” Murray said. “In anthropology, the researcher is the tool. It’s important to recognize that the researcher is the lens.”