Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Tina Lasisi, Biological Anthropologist & Science Communicator

Dr. Tina Lasisi (Source: www.tinalasisi.com)

 

Today’s blog post features a research anthropologist whose work has applied anthropological applications.  Dr. Tina Lasisi’s research on the evolution of human hair has sought to untangle some mysteries and biases concerning the biological diversity and variability present in hair.  Today’s blog post will discuss Dr. Lasisi’s journey to studying human hair, the impact of her research in the academy, how she is communicating those results to the non-scholarly community, and where she is going from here.

 

Dr. Tina Lasisi became interested in understanding hair while she was taking an introductory biological anthropology course at Cambridge University.  It was during the lecture that discussed human skin color variability as the result of biological adaptations to sun exposure that she began to understand more about how and why she and those around her looked different.  While that answered one of curiosities it led her to wonder about a topic that was not discussed in class: hair.  If skin color existed on a spectrum and was the result of biological adaptations could the same concept be applied to hair?  She asked her course instructor and other anthropology faculty and researchers, but no one had an answer for her.  All they could say was that she brought up and interesting research question, one that she should pursue if she wanted to learn more. 

 

And pursue is exactly what she did. 

 

She graduated from Cambridge University and pursued her graduate work under the supervision of Dr. Nina Jablonski, a biological anthropologist who has dedicated much of her research to understanding skin color variation.  Dr. Jablonski was just one member of a team of interdisciplinary researchers who worked with Lasisi on her research on human hair variability.  Her initial research found very little study on the topic, and what had been done was mired in racial prejudices and stereotypes.  The reason there was so little study on this topic was the fear among scholars of promoting the prejudices that had formed the initial literature on these topics, but Lasisi was dedicated to her research and believed that there was an ethical, responsible, and scientifically appropriate means of completing her work.  She found and built off a study by Harvard anthropologist, Daniel Hrdy, who had initially classified hair types by curl structure.  From there she pioneered new ways of scientifically understanding hair morphology, followed by undertaking her study concerning how and why hair variability exists.  For this she worked alongside anthropologists, thermal engineers, and physiologists, who conducted a series of experiments to determine how various hair types aided in heat regulation.  Ultimately, she discovered that the curlier the hair the better able it was at keeping the head, and ultimately body, cool, while the flatter the hair the better adapted it was at keeping the head and body warm.

 

Lasisi continues her research on human hair, ancestry, and race as she is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Southern California.  She has identified new areas of research that should be pursued, particularly related to hair health.  She hopes that her previous research will be used in medical studies, such as in better understanding how hair type may or may not contribute to hair loss.  She will be leaving her post-doctoral fellowship this year as she begins her Assistant Professor position at the University of Michigan in the fall semester.

 

Outside of her academic work she is also a dedicated science communicator.  According to her website she states: “My mission is to break that narrative by empowering people to curious about (rather than afraid of) the fascinating nature of human biological diversity.”  To this end she has been involved in a PBS program that seeks to educate viewers about human biological diversity.  She has also created various videos and content concerning her research and race and ancestry that she has disseminated on various social media platforms.  She is regularly interviewed by various news outlets and science organizations.  She is definitely not shy about getting her message out there, which is a blessing since topics related to race remain contemporary issues that must be appropriately addressed to remove prejudicial biases and empower people to be happy with who they are, skin, hair, and all.

 

References

Abell, A. (2022, September 29). Tina Lasisi wants to untangle the evolution of human hair. ScienceNews.

Kwong, E., & Ramirez, R. (2022, February 14). How to Talk About Hair Like a Scientist. NPR.

Lasisi, T. (2022). Retrieved from TinaLasisi.com: https://www.tinalasisi.com/

Seo, H. (2022, March 9). Untangling Race From Hair. Retrieved from Sapiens: https://www.sapiens.org/biology/hair-race-evolution/

 

Hex Hex: Origins and Meaning

If you have ever heard the word “hex” you may know it to have several different definitions.  It can refer to a shape (e.g., hexagon) or be used in the contexts of witchcraft, serving as either a verb or noun.  While you may be familiar with the term you may not have considered where it came from.  This is something that I recognized while considering the word in various contexts, leading me to learn more about its origins and changing meaning over time.  This blog post will explore these topics and address how and why the meaning changed.

 

As previously mentioned the word “hex” can be a noun or a verb.  One can put a hex on someone (noun), or they can hex someone (verb).  Both reference similar meanings.  As a noun the word hex refers to a negative spell cast upon someone, whereas as a verb it means to bewitch.  The word itself comes from the German words for witch or witchcraft, hexe and hexen respectively, but it morphed into the simplified hex when German immigrants began settling the Pennsylvania countryside.  Known today as the Pennsylvania Dutch (a mispronunciation of Deutsch, the German word for this group) the change in the pronunciation of hexe or hexen to simply hex demonstrates an anglicization of various non-English words, to which hex is just one.

 

But what brought about the incorporation of this word into the English language?  It actually derives from the early 1800s when the German immigrants/Pennsylvania Dutch settled the region.  As they built their homes and established their farms they painted a variety of symbols onto their barns.  These symbols ranged from hearts, circles, flowers, fictional animals, and stars.  It is unclear what led them to paint these symbols.  There are hypotheses that these were simply aesthetic works meant to decorate the barns, while others believe that these symbols had specific folk meaning associated with them and were painted to encourage good luck to the farm and land owners (e.g., prosperity, bountiful harvests, protection, etc.).  This led to them being called “hex signs”, and the folk meanings were eventually morphed into a type of folk magic.  Due to changing views of the German immigrants these symbols and the word hex became associated with witchcraft, leading to the formal recognition of the word hex referencing witchcraft in 1909.  This was further reinforced when local business people and tourism leaders capitalized on this idea to draw in visitors to the area, who were lured in by the notions of haunted tourism.

 

Ultimately, the phrase hex demonstrates a lot of cultural meaning and history.  It shows how language changes as groups come into contact with each other and how meanings change as those social relations either improve or sour.  This leaves us with the word as it exists today: a noun, verb, or adjective that strikes awe or fear into those who hear it, be it representing witchcraft or geometric shape.

 

Bibliography

Harper, Douglas. “Etymology of hex.” Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/hex. Accessed 10 June, 2022.

Tuel, Brenna. Symbols of Blood and Soil: Identity Construction and the Hex Signs of the Pennsylvania Germans. Montreal: Concordia University, 2019. Print.

Vocabulary.com. Vocabulary.com. 2022. Electronic. 10 June 2022.