For a lot of people, traveling to a different country may be fun and exciting, yet something uncommon. However, if you’re Katherine MacKinnon, from Saint Louis University’s department of sociology and criminal justice, South America becomes your home every summer for two months.
However, this is no vacation. MacKinnon, an anthropologist, is on a mission to study, observe and record the habits of both the white- and brown-faced capuchin monkeys.
Anthropology itself is no monkey-business either.
The field is not limited to just a study of humans, but it is a broad topic, encompassing disciplines such as physical, forensic, archaeological, cultural, linguistic, urban and medical anthropology. MacKinnon completed undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in General Anthropology.
She finished her Master’s Degree in biological anthropology at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada. After returning to Berkeley, she graduated with a doctorate in biological anthropology, with an emphasis on primate behavior.
When asked, “Why primates?” MacKinnon said, “I have always been an animal lover.”
While at Berkeley, this love grew into a passion. There, MacKinnon said she had the privilege of studying captive monkeys in the Berkeley Hills.
Since 1992, MacKinnon has been doing fieldwork with the brown- and white-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica, and more recently, in Suriname.
She said that these studies have included infant and juvenile social and developmental behavior, as well as juvenile feeding and foraging. MacKinnon has also been working in Nicaragua and Panama, teaching at field schools. There, she educates undergraduates and graduate students on data collection and primate behavior.
Among her other accomplishments, MacKinnon helped to found the Midwest Primate Interest Group. Organized in 2004, MacKinnon, along with Robert W. Sussman from Washington University in St. Louis, Paul A. Garber from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and Augustin Fuentes from Notre Dame University, sought to provide students, in the growing field of anthropology, with a comfortable, low-key environment of learning and discourse.
At these conventions, faculty, students and experts “come together as an intellectual community to discuss new theoretical ideas and present recent research,” according to MPIG’s website. This also gives students a chance to network with acclaimed authorities in various anthropological fields. MacKinnon currently serves as the vice president of MPIG.
In addition for her love of primates, Mackinnon also loves her field as a whole.
“[Anthropology] is a holistic field,” Mackinnon said. “[It] allows me to explore the many facets of what it means to be human.”
This diverse study has driven MacKinnon back to the jungles of South America for nearly two decades, to observe the capuchins. SLU offers an anthropology minor and an Arts and Sciences contract major in Anthropology. SLU also offers an array of courses for students interested in anthropology, as well as summer field opportunities.
