Alanna is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Syracuse University. As an historical bioarchaeologist, she draws upon skeletal, archival, and material traces to understand lived experiences in the past. Her dissertation explores the intersections of health, labor, and citizenship through the embodied experiences of Irish immigrants living and dying in New York City in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her work as a Public Humanities Fellow will culminate in an interactive digital exhibit that maps the life histories of these immigrants on the historical urban landscape of New York City. This map will allow the viewer to envision lived experiences of New Yorkers in the past, particularly immigrants making new homes and communities in New York City.
