Welcome to the Anthropology Department's Mentorship Program! The mentorship program builds bridges between graduate students and their desired careers by pairing incoming students with professionals working in an area of their interest.
A portion of the program focuses on CU Denver anthropology graduate students acting as mentors to CU Denver underrepresented undergraduates (first-gen and/or BIPOC or LGBTQ+) to help you build bridges to internships, jobs, graduate school and a career.
This page will give you a description of our mentors, most of whom are graduates of our program, and who are now using their MA in Anthropology in the workforce or as doctoral students.
Program Facilitators
Dr. Marty Otañez, Graduate Advisor | Lynesha Laws, Graduate Assistant
Please feel free to contact either Marty or Lynesha with any questions regarding the mentor program.
Mentors - Archaeology
Greg Wolff is one of two archaeologists employed at the Colorado Department of Transportation, for whom he conducts statewide archaeological surveys, ensures agency compliance with state and federal historic preservation regulations, and facilitates stakeholder consultation. His background includes the public, private, and academic sectors (State and Federal positions, cultural resource management firms, and university-based archaeological firms). His expertise is in coordinating intergovernmental, tribal, and public consultation within the frameworks of the National Historic Preservation Act (Section 106) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), including the development of Programmatic Agreements and Memoranda of Agreement/Understanding. His skill set includes Environmental Compliance, Transportation Planning, Historical Research, Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, and ArcGIS. He has a Master’s Degree focused in Archaeology from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) and a Bachelor's Degree (double major in Political Science and Anthropology) from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). He has field experience in numerous Western and Midwestern states, as well as in Central America (Belize and Guatemala). Professional interests include prehistoric and historic archaeology, history, ethnobotany, historic preservation, and environmental planning. His commitment to the discipline includes service on several committees for non-profit professional organizations, including serving as Chair of the Native American Initiatives Committee for the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists. In that role, he administers the CCPA Native American Scholarship.
Mentors - Medical Anthropology
Shelby Chapman (MA) (shelby.chapman@childrenscolorado.org)
Shelby graduated from the University of Colorado Denver with a Master's Degree in Anthropology in 2011. She received a Graduate Certificate in Public Health from the University of Colorado in 2013. Shelby worked for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment from 2010-2014 as a Health Educator in the Refugee Health Program of Colorado. Her primary duties were to educate newly arrived refugees about preventive health while considering the unique needs of the refugee(s) being served. Shelby also developed presentations and provided training to medical and social services providers along the Front Range about the history and cultural background of the refugee populations in Colorado. Shelby also helped start a Refugee Health Resource Center that assisted refugees in navigating the complex US healthcare system.
Shelby currently works for Children's Hospital Colorado as the Health Literacy Program Manager. The program encompasses all patient/family education and its overall mission is to improve health equity. The three core priorities are providing skills to facilitate spoken communication between staff and patients/families, improving written communication, and improving the navigability of the health system. Shelby is also leading a system-wide effort to screen for and address the social determinants of health (SDoH) as part of the organization's Population Health Strategy. Shelby helped the organization institute universal screening for the SDoH in its primary care clinics and is currently working to expand screening to additional areas of the hospital. Shelby also serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee.
Andrés Guerrero (BS, MPH) (andres.guerrero@state.co.us)
Andrés has a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University in physiology and an MPH from the Colorado School
of Public Health. Andrés began his public health career in the year 2000 working as a research assistant at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. His work at the university focused on outreach, educating people who inject drugs on
harm reduction methods, and assisting them with entry into drug treatment. He then moved to Peer Assistance Services, a
private non-profit agency, to manage a federal SAMHSA grant that aimed to reduce the risk of HIV, viral hepatitis and
substance abuse among minorities who were recently released from the Colorado Department of Corrections. He began at the Colorado Department of Health and Environment in the summer of 2009 in the Disease Control and Environmental
Epidemiology Division. He is currently the Prescription Drug Overdose Unit manager in the Prevention Services Division. His professional areas of interest are drug user health, qualitative research, and digital storytelling. When he is not working he enjoys spending time outdoors.
Jaime received an MA in anthropology from CU Denver, with her primary interests in migrant health and the Latino day laborer population in Denver. Jaime received her undergraduate degree at Metro State, studying anthropology, African history, and nonprofit administration, where she also participated in a study abroad program funded by the US State Department that took place in northern Ethiopia. Jaime has worked for a nonprofit in Denver that partnered with school districts to administer the School Health Services program, maximizing reimbursement from Medicaid for special education students, as well as for Health Management Associates, a for-profit healthcare research and consulting firm, as a research associate. In that role, she conducted research and evaluations for a variety of projects ranging from LGBTQIA mental health service delivery to community health needs assessments. Jaime currently resides in Wichita, Kansas, where she works for Wichita State University's Community Engagement Institute as part of the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation. In this role, she conducts community needs assessments, does qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, and provides support on a wide range of evaluation projects.
Mentors - Biological Anthropology
Lucy Bowland is a biological anthropologist interested in paleoanthropology, comparative anatomy, and functional morphology in living and fossil primates. Her MA thesis at the University of Colorado, Denver, focused on the morphology of primate hands. In particular, her thesis utilized a large comparative sample of the first metacarpal of extant primates and fossil hominins to better understand the morphology of the Homo naledi first metacarpal. She has experience working with 3D data, as well as associated data processing software such as Geomagic, Mimics, Landmark Editor, and R. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Arkansas and plans to continue studying the anatomy of primate hands, as well as to learn more about the pros and cons of using 3D data for anthropological research. She has fieldwork experience excavating a “vampire” burial ground in Poland, working at the site of the Laetoli footprints in Tanzania, and excavating at Ashkelon in Israel.
Abby Peterson graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with BAs in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology. She now works at the Denver Zoo as a primate keeper, specializing in New World Primates. She participates in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' New World Primate Steering Committee. Abby also supports conservation initiatives through the zoo's Field Conservation department.
Robin Abrams received her BA in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an Associate’s Degree in Zookeeping Technology from Pikes Peak Community College (PPCC). While at PPCC, she volunteered at a rescue center in South Africa called CARE (the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education). During her time in Africa, she fulfilled many roles, some of which included monitoring large groups of baboons, hand-rearing several orphaned monkeys, and working as a clinic assistant in the veterinary hospital. She worked as a volunteer and then as a keeper assistant in Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's Primate World and Rocky Mountain Wild sections, and spent two years as a primate keeper in the Houston Zoo. She also had the opportunity to work as the paid primate intern at the Denver Zoo and has been a full-time keeper there since 2014. She works primarily with the Denver Zoo's collection of Old World Monkeys, although her favorite species to work with is chimpanzees! Robin finds behavior and group dynamics fascinating. Two of her favorite things to do as a zookeeper are spending time observing the animals and giving keeper chats to guests.
Abella graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Anthropology. During her time at Penn State, she has participated in research with the Department of BioBehavioral Health - Psychophysiological Lab under Dr. William Gerin, as well as served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for BIOL 129: Mammalian Anatomy. From 2012-2014, Abella attended CU Denver and received her Master’s degree in Anthropology (Biological) under the guidance of Dr. Charles Musiba. During her time at CU Denver, she was the Human Osteology Lab Instructor (SP 2013 & SP 2014) and has participated in the 2013 Tanzania Field School where she was able to assist in the 2013 Olduvai Paleoanthropological and Paleoecological Project (TOPP), as well as excavations at Laetoli. In 2014, Abella was the field teaching assistant for CU Denver’s Tanzania Field School at Laetoli (Site G, Locality 8) and assisted data collection at the National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. In 2016, Abella also assisted Dr. Christine Steininger (University of Witswatersrand) and colleagues at the Gondolin Cave excavation.
Currently, Abella is a PhD candidate at the University of Arkansas with Dr. Peter Ungar as her advisor and has worked on collaborative research which has resulted into publications on dental microwear of extinct primates from Kanapoi, as well as on dental microwear of Australopithecus africanus. Her PhD dissertation focuses on dental adaptations and seasonal niche partitioning of a Sumatran primate community. She hopes to use the data collected to enhance our understanding of how primates may have partitioned their environment in the past.
Alex Pelissero received his MA in Anthropology from UCD in 2017. Focusing on biological anthropology, he primarily studies the emergence and evolution of bipedality in hominins. He wrote his thesis on the Laetoli hominin footprints, doing a comparative analysis on the two sets of prints from Site G and Site S using photogrammetry. He participated in two field seasons in Tanzania with Charles Musiba, working at sites across the country. In addition to studying footprints at Laetoli and Engare Sero, he also helped conduct an extensive UAV survey and mapping project at the Middle Pleistocene archaeological site of Isimila. He has presented his research at multiple conferences, such as the AAPA, Paleoanthropology Society, and the East African Association of Paleoanthropology and Paleontology. Outside of academia, he works as a cook and plays guitar in his punk band. He is currently applying to doctoral programs.