Harpur student spotlight: Diana Gibson

Diana Gibson was writing a paper for her undergraduate art class when she noticed her heart wasn’t fully into the project. She found herself peering over to the television to watch the National Geographic channel.

“I just realized I was intensely interested in this totally different thing,” she recalled. “I thought back to how I cried when my dad threw away all of our National Geographic magazines — I was devastated. It was my window into the world and different people.”

Gibson was just beginning her art degree at Weber State University in Utah when she realized her interest in art stemmed from her interest in humans. She then switched her major to anthropology.

As Gibson completed her anthropology degree, she found herself drawn to the biological aspects of anthropology, which ultimately brought her to Binghamton University to pursue a master’s degree in biomedical anthropology.

“Elizabeth DiGangi [an assistant professor in the Anthropology Department] was a big selling point for me,” Gibson said. “She’s a certified forensic anthropologist and a lot of her research interests lined up with what I wanted to do at the time. I was very interested in human variation and differences around the world.”

Students enrolled in Binghamton University’s biomedical anthropology master’s program combine physical anthropology — the study of bones — with traditional social anthropology to better understand disease and public health among past human populations to find health trends that are relevant today.

Gibson’s interest lies in the archaeology sector of anthropology, which involves working with bones. Her research topic focuses on maternal health, a field that she got to explore through a bioarchaeology internship in Coporaque, Peru.

“What we did over the summer was look at female and dental health,” Gibson said. “I’m taking the data from the dental health to see how that ties to maternal health because the two are very strongly correlated. I’m taking those markers and comparing the women of reproductive age and their dental health and comparing it to their male counterparts.”

Gibson is using the strong correlation of dental and maternal health to compare the general health of men and women who are of reproductive age. She is expecting to see poorer health conditions in women because of the added stress that comes along with pregnancy.

Being a mother of two young children, Gibson knows firsthand what the stress of pregnancy and motherhood can bring. She had her first daughter while in her undergraduate program and her second daughter while applying to master’s programs.

Gibson said she is proud to have persevered and is raising her daughters while completing complex research and rigorous coursework.

She attributes her success to one word: efficiency. Gibson is constantly creating short- and long-term personal and academic goals.

“You just have to write them down in a thousand different places,” Gibson said, laughing. “I think this is something that a lot of students do once they become serious about what they want to do, but as a mother I have to do it at a more efficient rate because I don’t have a choice. If I procrastinate, I am going to fail and I can’t afford to fail because my daughters are watching me.”

Gibson acts as a role model for her two young children, but also inspires herself to keep reaching for her goals – such as someday becoming a professor.

“Each time I complete a goal it gives me the courage and imagination to pursue the next step,” Gibson said.