Our Team

Kathleen Paul is the Lab PI. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the Director of Predental Studies. Kathleen is also the President-Elect of the Dental Anthropology Association.

Kathleen received her PhD from Arizona State University in 2017 and has been at the University of Arkansas since 2019. She teaches several upper-division courses, including Introduction to Dental Science, Bioarchaeology-Bodies of the Past, and Archaeology of Death. For more information on research and teaching, please see her CV.

Favorite Things: Philadelphia sports, the Sonoran desert, bagels, her two bad cats, reruns of Frasier, and time on the river with her family

Meutia is a doctoral student and research assistant in the Anthropology Department. She is a Fulbright scholar and P.E.O. fellow from Indonesia and earned a DDS from Syiah Kuala University, Indonesia.

Since 2022, she has been working in the Dental Phenomics Lab, where she is trained in 3D rendering using Avizo software to study the evolutionary and developmental patterns of dental morphology. She has also taught the Introduction to Biological Anthropology Lab at University of Arkansas. Her dissertation project examines developmental plasticity of palatal rugae and changes in their morphology throughout the life course.

Favorite Things: eating Indonesian food with family and friends, her cats, arts and crafts, Game of Thrones, and the House of Dragons

Ava is a senior Pre-Dental student majoring in Biology with minors in General Business and Medical Humanities. In the lab, she has worked with quality control: organizing data, checking scans and photos, and updating spreadsheets to easily access sample information. She is also working on an honors proposal and thesis. Her research will investigate whether various demographic factors are proxies for stress as reflected in patterns of fluctuating asymmetry measured from stone dental casts of hamadryas baboons.

Favorite Things: spending time at the lake with friends and family  

Tyler is a Biology/Pre-Dental student at the University of Arkansas. He is a member of the Pre-Dental Society, and his ultimate goal is to practice orthodontics. Along with his academics, he is a Supplemental Instruction Leader for University Chemistry I and plays drum set for the Hogwild Band.

Favorite Things: music, drumming, horror movies, biking, reading, and time with friends and family

William is a rising senior Biology student on the Pre-Dental track. He is involved in the Pre-Dental Society, currently serving as the organization’s President. He is also on the Board of Directors of a student-led non-profit organization called Thriving Arkansas Communities. He currently serves as one of the heads of volunteer work at WelcomeHealth, a clinic that provides free dental care in Fayetteville, AR.

Favorite Things: playing golf, exercising, trying new foods, and kayaking with friends

Lacey is an Anthropology student also pursuing a History minor. She is currently conducting honors research in the Dental Phenomics Lab. Her project uses permanent dental morphology data to reconstruct biological relationships among the precolonial adult residents of Tlatelolco, an Aztec market site. Using the results, she will explore how patterns of disease and trauma intersect with patterns of relatedness.

Rylee is a sophomore Pre-Dental student majoring in Exercise Science. She is a member of the Pre-Dental Society. During breaks, Rylee works as a sterilization tech at a dental office in her hometown of Kansas City, Kansas. She is a member of Greek Life and the Honors College at the University of Arkansas.

Favorite Things: exercising, time at the lake with family and friends, country music concerts, snow skiing, iced coffee, and reading 

Molly graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2024 with an MA in Anthropology. Her research focuses on the patterning cascade model of dental development, specifically the role it plays in explaining human mandibular premolar variation. While a member of the lab, she helped generate and process microCT scans of skeletal primate specimens. Her future goal is to attend veterinary school in the fall of 2025. 

Favorite Things: knitting, Stardew Valley, puzzles, guava and cheese pastries, Publix, her national park patch collection, and every cat she comes across

Will is a recent Biology graduate, who will be attending the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Dentistry starting August 2024. His goal is to specialize in the dental field as an orthodontist or periodontist. His work in the lab involved quality control: organizing data, checking scans and photos, and creating spreadsheets to easily access sample information. His time in the lab allowed him to learn about how a successful research lab operates and better understand the underlying foundations of tooth size and structure, along with factors involved in acquiring certain oral anatomical traits.

Favorite Things: watching and playing sports, hanging out with friends and family 

Taylor recently graduated with an Anthropology major, as well as Biology and Medical Humanities minors. She is currently completing a masters in Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences before starting medical school in 2025. Her goal is pursue work in women’s health. Before graduating, Taylor completed an honors thesis centered around the adult population of the Aztec site of Tlatelolco. As part of this research, she traveled to the 2024 meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists alongside other members of the lab. Through the Dental Phenomics Lab, she met wonderful people who were truly interested in her research.

Favorite Things: her four guinea pigs and two cats, all of whom keep her very busy at home (her cat Kevin even has an article written about him by the rescue from which he was adopted)