The annual thrill of graduation is just receding at Arizona State University, but before it is overcome by the summer heat, we recognize the achievements and promise of recent grad Saarah Munir.  Last month, Saarah received her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. During the fall and spring semesters of her last year at ASU, Saarah worked at Digital Antiquity.  She provided valuable assistance in the creation of a digital archive for Salt River Project’s cultural resource management program.  She exhibited great care and diligence in scanning and organizing documents and preparing metadata records for reports that were entered into the new digital library.

Congratulations, to Saarah and her family, from all of us at The Center for Digital Antiquity!

In the fall, Saarah will enter the graduate program of Columbia University, working on a Master of the Arts in Museum Anthropology.  She hopes eventually to obtain a Ph.D. in Anthropology.  But, wherever her professional development leads, Saarah plans to work at broadening access and representation of marginalized communities through the study and presentation of material culture.

Before landing in NYC this fall, she will spend the summer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, working as an intern in Archaeological Collections at the Anthropology Department of the National Museum of Natural History.  There she will assist in research related to ongoing projects, cataloging, and artifact identification. The projects she is likely to work on include Iron Age sites from Senegal, Post Classic Maya sites from the coastal areas of Chiapas, and a site on the Cocle Province in Panama.

Even though the weather is still sizzling and it feels like summer will never end, school is back in session here at ASU this week.  It seems like a great time to remind you that tDAR is a fantastic resource for teachers and students alike.  Educators at all levels can search tDAR for photographs and maps to enhance lectures.  We have hundreds of real data sets that can be used in classroom exercises.  There are even some sample assignments (another) in tDAR, and we would love to see more.  Are you an educator who has made use of tDAR in your classroom presentations or assignments?  Please tell us about it in the comments below!

For your enjoyment, see what we turned up when searching tDAR for these back-to-school themed topics: teaching, schoolhouse, pencil, teacher, notebookapple.