In the Lab

Kelly Tapager Fox is a Collections Manager at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. She has a master’s degree in bioarchaeology, specializing in human and animal skeletal remains, and has worked on archaeological sites on the East Coast and in England. She is currently overseeing the inventory and move of the Museum’s extensive archaeological collections.

Cynthia F. Bearer, MD, PhD, is the Chief of the Division of Neonatology at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, the William & Lois Briggs Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University and Editor-in-Chief of Pediatric Research, the official journal of the American Society of Pediatrics, the European Society for Paediatric Research and the Society for Pediatric Research.

Dr. Bearer completed a BA with honors in mathematics from Smith College; a PhD in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University; and an MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She became an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University in 1994 where she was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics with tenure. In 2008 she moved to University of Maryland School of Medicine to become the Mary Gray Cobey Professor of Neonatology. In 2009 she became Chief, Division of Neonatology and in 2012 Associate Chair for Research. In 2019 she returned to Case Western Reserve University and UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital as the Division Chief of Neonatology, and the William & Lois Briggs Professor of Pediatrics.

In addition to her administrative responsibilities, she is actively involved in research, education and service. She has published extensively on fetal and pediatric environmental health. Her research has received funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. EPA. She has established fatty acid ethyl esters as a biomarker for both in utero exposure to ethanol, and ethanol impact on neurocognitive outcomes. She holds a patent on this technology. Her laboratory is studying the impact of environmental and endogenous solvents on the development of the brain using both cellular and animal models. She is currently funded by the NIH/NICHD to study the impact of bilirubin and hypoxic ischemic injury on membrane microdomains. She is a frequently invited speaker nationally and internationally.

Dr. Bearer has published extensively in the scientific literature: 10 book chapters, and more than 100 peer reviewed articles. She is Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Pediatric Research. She is a member of the American Pediatrics Society, the European Society for Paediatric Research, and the Society for Pediatric Research. She has served on the Committee to Evaluate Children’s Health of the National Academy of Science. She is past President of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Study Group. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Board for the U.S. EPA. She is a past Chair of the Board for the Children’s Environmental Health Network. She is a Smith College Medalist. She has been recognized as “Best Doctors in America” since 2017. She is the 2019 recipient of the Children’s Environmental Health Network’s Child Health Advocate Science Award.

Garrett Ormiston is the Manager of Preserve Operations for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Natural Areas Program. In this role, he helps to oversee about 12,500 acres of natural habitat in Northeast Ohio. Each of the Museum's preserves represents one or more different ecosystems that occur in this region. Ormiston works on land-conservation projects for the Museum, and helps to direct land-management and stewardship operations on the preserves.

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 herding and farming spread into sub-Saharan Africa beginning approximately 5,000 years ago, and how ancient peoples navigated issues of climate change, shifting economic and land-use strategies, and contact with foreign groups. Her work integrates diverse lines of evidence from archaeology, skeletal biology, 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 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Turkana Basin Institute, and the National Geographic Society.

Dr. Sawchuk advocates for ethical research in anthropology; community-based approaches; and equity, diversity, and inclusion. 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. Recently, she co-organized the first ancient DNA and DNA conference held in Africa, hosted by the National Museums of Kenya.

Dr. Sawchuk earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto and bachelor’s and master’s degrees, both in anthropology, from the University of Alberta. Prior to joining the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, she served as Banting Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, Canada. She holds additional academic affiliations as an Adjunct Professor in Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio; a Research Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, New York; and a Research Associate with the Turkana Basin Institute, Kenya.

Research areas: Bioarchaeology, ethics, health and disease, dental anthropology, ancient DNA, Africa