Team Members

Dr. Nicole Burt is the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Senior Director of Curatorial and Research Affairs. In this role, Dr. Burt leads the formulation, coordination, and execution of all science-based research and initiatives at the Museum, guiding the organization’s curatorial vision and strategic direction in the Science and Conservation Division (Curatorial, Natural Areas, and Astronomy).

Dr. Burt works to deepen the impact of Museum research programs and enhance collection stewardship. A key part of this role involves fostering a culture of communication and collaboration across the organization, promoting excellence and innovation in natural history scholarship. Dr. Burt’s leadership is instrumental in strengthening partnerships with universities, research institutions, and government agencies, while supporting learning opportunities for aspiring scientists.

Dr. Burt first joined the Museum as its Curator of Human Health & Evolutionary Medicine in 2014. This role was part of the legacy of the Museum’s 2007 merger with HealthSpace Cleveland, which made human health a cornerstone of the Museum’s mission and programming. Dr. Burt facilitates the Museum’s ongoing commitment and connection to Cleveland’s medical and health communities. She is an advocate for fostering equitable partnerships between scientists, museums, and the communities with whom they work.

Dr. Burt is a biological anthropologist who works with both archaeological and modern human populations. Her research centers around the question, “What does it mean to be healthy?” and utilizes the best research and educational practices to promote understanding and empower the Museum community to take action. Her interdisciplinary approach combines many methods, including histology, stable isotope analysis, and even interviews, to explore health through the lens of evolutionary medicine. In addition to her anthropological research, Dr. Burt contributes to the literature on bioethics in museums, informal learning pedagogy, and creating evolutionary medicine-informed curricula for medical education. Dr. Burt earned her Ph.D. in biological anthropology from the University of Alberta, a master's degree in forensic science from Michigan State University, and a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Beloit College.

Research areas: Diet and health, food access, bioethics, early-childhood feeding practice, osteology, stable isotope reconstruction, methods testing, informal learning pedagogy

Dr. Emma Finestone uses archaeological fieldwork to investigate adaptive shifts in the human lineage that relate to the early manufacture and use of stone tools. The origins of toolmaking have important implications for our ancestors’ relationship with their environment and their ability to forage for a wide range of food resources. Dr. Finestone’s field projects in eastern Africa span evolutionary changes over the past 3 million years and focus on reconstructing the mobility, range expansion, and landscape use of toolmakers to illuminate how early tool technology facilitated the spread of human ancestors around the globe. She studies some of the earliest-known stone tools, which our ancient relatives transported over long distances and used to butcher hippos more than 2.6 million years ago. Her work has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the Journal of Human Evolution, and the American Association of Biological Anthropologists.

Dr. Finestone is passionate about science communication and outreach. She is enthusiastic about sharing international fieldwork in human origins with the Cleveland community. Before joining the Cleveland Museum of Natural History as Assistant Curator of Human Origins, Dr. Finestone served as Group Leader of Archaeology and Head of the Archaeology Laboratory Unit at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. Previously, she served as an instructor at Lehman College and Hunter College and as a research affiliate of the National Museums of Kenya.

Dr. Finestone received her Ph.D. in biological anthropology in 2019 from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Prior to her time at CUNY, she worked in the Conservation and Science Department at the Lincoln Park Zoo studying the foraging and tool behaviors of chimpanzees and gorillas. Dr. Finestone earned a B.A. with honors in anthropology and biology from the University of Chicago in 2010.

Research areas: Oldowan, paleoanthropology, lithic analysis, hominin evolution

Dr. Elizabeth (Ebeth) Sawchuk is a bioarchaeologist who studies modern human evolution and population history in Africa over the past 50,000 years. Her interests include how ancient peoples navigated issues like climate change, migration, economic and cultural change, and stress and disease, especially during the Holocene transition from hunting and gathering to food production. Her work integrates diverse lines of evidence from archaeology, skeletal biology, paleopathology, dental anthropology, and ancient DNA to understand how past peoples coped with major changes in their world and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.

Dr. Sawchuk has worked at field sites across eastern Africa and maintains an active research program in Kenya in collaboration with the Turkana Basin Institute and the National Museums of Kenya. Her research has been published in journals such as Antiquity, African Archaeological Review, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Nature, Science, Science Advances, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and PLOS One (for more information, check out Dr. Sawchuk’s Google Scholar profile). Her work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Turkana Basin Institute, and the National Geographic Society.

Dr. Sawchuk advocates for community-based and ethical research, especially when it comes to working with human remains. She is committed to fostering equitable partnerships between archaeologists, curators, and the communities with whom they work, as well as developing best practices for museums’ stewardship of and policies for research on human remains. At CMNH, Dr. Sawchuk is one of the curators who cares for the Hamann-Todd collection, and she leads the CMNH Human Ethics Task Force.

Dr. Sawchuk holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto (2017) and Bachelor’s (2008) and Master’s (2012) degrees in anthropology from the University of Alberta. She is also an Adjunct Professor in Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Alberta, a Research Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, and a Research Associate with the Turkana Basin Institute, Kenya.

Research areas: migration, hunter-gatherers, early agriculture, ancient DNA

Dr. Meghan Strong is an archaeologist and art historian who specializes in sensory archaeology, performance, and perception in ancient Egypt. She has lived and conducted fieldwork throughout Egypt and Sudan for more than a decade, including as part of her doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, and worked on projects at the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Luxor and Cairo. She is the author of Sacred Flames: The Power of Artificial Light in Ancient Egypt and a co-editor of After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape and Lightscape of Ancient Cities. She has worked on cultural-heritage projects in the United States, England, and Africa, focusing on collections care, curation, and materials science.