Contact: Leah Barbour
Photo by: Russ Houston
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Anthropologist Nicholas P. Herrmann soon will travel from Mississippi State University to build a collaborative bridge to the island of Cyprus.
The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board recently awarded the associate professor his first Core Fulbright U.S. Scholarship. Beginning in January, Herrmann will be researching for six months at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute.
Herrmann's research focuses on skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleopathology.
"The Fulbright proposal was written to foster collaboration between the Mississippi State Cobb Institute of Archeology and CAARI researchers, as well as the Republic of Cyprus Department of Antiquities in Nicosia," Herrmann said.
Recognized as one of the nation's top producers of Fulbright Scholars, MSU regularly sends faculty members all over the globe to foster the institution's land-grant missions of learning, research and service.
Herrmann said he is embracing MSU's campus tradition. Through teaching anthropology and researching skeletal remains uncovered during the past 20 years, he seeks to serve both MSU and CAARI by helping form an alliance between the institutions, he explained.
"My work in Cyprus will link to other research that's been done across Cypress in relation to Hellienistic to Roman period studies," he said. "Having this international focus, we'll be linking knowledge and research.
"The main goal is to establish these relationships, leverage our expertise and combine our research programs to benefit both Mississippi State and CAARI, especially by starting student exchanges between the Cobb Institute and researchers in Cyprus."
Herrmann's project, "The Ayioi Omoloyites Bioarchaeological Project: Confronting challenges of commingled human remains from Hellenistic to Roman period tombs from Nicosia, Cyprus," enable him to continue a bioarchaeological study first begun in 2011.
Before beginning the fellowship, he is planning a summer visit to the island to collect data, prepare materials and visit with his new colleagues.
"It's an honor to receive a Fulbright, and I'm hoping this grant will foster greater interactions and exchange within this specific research area," he said. "It can lead to a lot of good research and collaboration, and while I'm there, I'll try to make contacts that will continue to benefit these programs in the future. Combining our research will establish interactions that will benefit both institutions."
In addition to his biological anthropology doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Herrmann holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Fulbright is his second 2014 honor; he recently received the Ralph E. Powe Research Excellence Award, MSU's top recognition for faculty members whose significant scientific contributions helped increase awareness of MSU's many research programs and capabilities.
For more about MSU's department of anthropology and Middle Eastern cultures, visit www.amec.msstate.edu.
Visit www.msstate.edu for complete details about MSU.