Maria Lopez Rojas, an international doctoral student in the Environmental Dynamics program, received the $5,000 Grants-in-Aid of Field Research Award from the Society of Ethnobiology, which will support her research into agroforestry practices.

The competitive award is given out to one student or professional each year to support their field research, with the primary goal of increasing knowledge in any field of ethnobiology.

Lopez Rojas' research explores agroforestry practices from 1500 B.C.E. to 1250 C.E. in Costa Rican Chibcha societies. Specifically, Lopez Rojas focuses on the Nuevo Corinto archaeological site — a Chibchan settlement inhabited by Indigenous people before the arrival of Spaniards. She will use the grant to fund the collection of pollen and phytolith remains from current and archaeological plants in Costa Rica.

"I am excited to build reference collections of pollen and phytoliths from Costa Rica because these are critical resources for developing inferences on forest landscapes in the past and the use of agroforestry as a subsistence strategy in Chibchan societies," she said. "However, the most exciting outcome of this funding opportunity is building reference collections for supporting the training of Costa Rican colleagues in archaeobotanical analysis."

"Research materials for conducting archaeobotanical analysis are limited in Costa Rica, and, because of this, I plan to share digital reference collections and laboratory protocols to encourage the development of archaeobotanical analysis and foster the decolonization of academic knowledge from production centers to academic peripheries and non-academic audiences," she added.

A Costa Rican native, Lopez Rojas began her doctoral studies at the U of A in 2023 after earning her bachelor's and master's degrees in anthropology from the University of Costa Rica. In addition to this award, Lopez Rojas has also recently won an international fellowship from the American Association of Women in University and the university's Latin American & Latino Studies Program Graduate Student Research Award.

The Society of Ethnobiology is a nonprofit professional organization dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the relationships of plants and animals with human cultures worldwide, including past and present relationships between peoples and the environment. For more information, visit their website.