Melanie Beasley

Melanie Beasley is a graduate student in anthropology at UC San Diego and successfully completed the program requirements for the Anthropogeny Specialization in 2014. Melanie is interested in paleodiet and paleoecolgical reconstruction of hominins, stable isotope analysis research, bioarchaeology and California archaeology. Melanie received a BS in anthropology from UC-Davis in 2003 and went on to receive her MA in anthropology from CSU-Chico, a nationally top-rated forensic anthropology program. At CSU-Chico, Melanie discovered her interest in the use of stable isotope analysis to reconstruct paleodiet and paleoecology. She has worked extensively on human skeletal material from Central California to reconstruct prehistoric diet using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes to address issues of resource intensification and declines in foraging efficiency, specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area. Melanie currently works in Dr. Margaret Schoeninger’s Paleodiet Lab on fossil faunal material with the aim of reconstructing paleodiet and the paleoecology of the region where our hominin ancestors first became bipedal. Additionally, several of her projects surround the goal of gaining a better understanding of how diagenesis (alteration due to post-depositional burial environment) alters stable isotope ratios in bone and teeth.