In this episode of Confluence, we talk with Haley Omeasoo, a Ph.D. student in Anthropology here at UM whose recent research presentation won top prize at UM’s GradCon. In the conversation, Haley talks about her research on fracture patterns in cases of domestic violence, her journey from the Blackfeet Nation to UM, and her continuing mission to combat the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women.  

Story Transcript

Meredith Snow 

she's just one of those students who you really enjoy working with because they just are so passionate and it kind of bleeds off to everybody else right like so it's really nice to have somebody around who's absolutely into it like loves it knows what they want to do. 

Ashby Kinch 

You just heard the voice of Meredith Snow talking about Haley Omeasoo, a master's student in humans program and anthropology. On Confluence. We'd like to highlight graduate student accomplishments. In this episode, we celebrate Haley as winner of this year's best in conference award at GradCon for a poster presentation in humanities and social sciences. Haley won her award for her paper identifying skeletal trauma markers associated with intimate partner violence, a technical forensic study with social and political implications for how we understand the impact of domestic violence on communities. Haley finished her master's here at UM, and is heading on to a PhD in anthropology, where she'll work on an intersection of topics highly salient to Native communities, missing and murdered indigenous women, and the repatriation of human remains from anthropological collections. We talk about these pressing questions, as well as her educational journey from the Blackfeet Nation to UM where she has already completed undergraduate degrees in biology and anthropology, in addition to her master's, and will complete the trifecta with a PhD. Welcome to Confluence, where the river is always with us. Welcome to Confluence, Haley. 

Haley Omeasoo

Thank you. 

AK

On our podcast, we love to celebrate graduate student accomplishment. And in your case, it's so good to have you and celebrate your recent victory at GradCon, I got to see your poster presentation, which is really fun. Tell us a little bit about how that project evolved. And and especially what was it like to do a presentation at GradCon? 

Haley

Yeah. So when I started my graduate program, I actually didn't plan on doing a thesis, I first planned on doing a portfolio, and then I was going to do a professional paper. And then for one of my classes, we kind of had to do a research project using databases. And after I had done that, I was like, Well, I mean, I already have all most of my information here. So, I might as well just turn this into a thesis. So my work started with Keith Biddle, who did this project previously. And so, he's helped me out a lot through this whole journey, for sure. So we looked at fracture patterns associated with intimate partner violence or domestic violence. And it was important to me because I was trying to do most of my work in this graduate program, focusing on how I can help missing and murdered indigenous women, and you know, just indigenous people in general. And so when Keith did his study, first, he couldn't get any Native American samples. And so that kind of created this bias a little bit in his results. And so I kind of took that upon myself of well, you know, maybe since I'm a native person, I can try and get some of these native samples, and I was able to. So I went with the Arizona trauma registry, and I was able to get their data to get a lot of these native samples. And it did turn out that Native American women were leading in these IPV cases and the fracture patterns that I was looking at, which is the zygomaticus maxillary complex. 

AK

 So, we have listeners, not visual, but you would sort of talk about zygomatic will be coming from the eye down to the cheekbones. 

Haley

It's the zygomatic bone, which is your cheekbone, and the breakage occurs on those articulation sites to your frontal bone. So your forehead, bone, and then to your temporal bone, which goes towards your ear, and then towards your maxilla towards your nose. 

AK

You keep going technical, but we'll just translate. Yeah, but that was beautiful, you know, you kind of caught that area. So this would be a punch or a blow to the head. From the side or the front. This is all ex post facto, and others these weren't necessarily identified at the time or connected at the time.  

Haley

Yeah. So I kind of did those frequencies to see if, ZMC for short, if that had the highest frequency in these cases, but I did get a lot of kind of weird results because of the fractures that are around that complex that could have been ZMC. But it kind of also goes with the people that entered the data in first. And not being technical, if it was ZMC or you know general area.  

AK

And so that might be more toward the nose or lower. 

Haley

Yeah, orbital floor is a lot of what I looked at too. 

AK

So I guess my little step off break right here is an orbital floor. From when I got punched by a rugby player. If they did ex post facto, I'd have to have a note in my little... “Rugby player.” So they knew, no intimate. But you’re looking at both male and female to as a cross comparison, right? 

Haley

Yeah. And so what I found was that they did have similar frequencies in those fracture patterns. But I saw a lot more mandibular fractures for males, which is basically what I interpreted, was more brawls between male to male, rather than IPV.  

AK

And why would that be the case? Why would it be more likely to break your jaw in a brawl? 

Haley

So the way I interpreted it was in a brawl, you know, they go for the mandibular angle to get the person down. Rather, in an IPV situation, they go more for the mid-face, because it's more demeaning, dehumanizing to the women because it would you know, cause bruising, black eyes, stuff like that. 

AK 

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, so not exactly the most uplifting topic, but super important, super important. And I mean, the, you mentioned for listeners, who maybe not are not familiar, but the missing and murdered indigenous women, MMIW, for sure, very important movement to raise visibility, because it's not just that it's happening. But it's also there's not public discussion about it, or there hasn't been until the movement kind of has raised it to visibility. And so now, this is about, you know, making putting pressure politically right, putting pressure on sheriff's departments and police units and criminal and, you know, FBI databases, to focus on these cases, which are many of them are still unsolved. Right. So, is that a good summary of why it's important, you know, in the community? 

Haley

Yeah, for sure. So one of the cases I want to talk about that is really important to me is the Jermaine Charlo case where she has been missing for a while now. And she was taken just right from downtown Missoula, and was the last place she was seen. And they haven't found her or her remains yet. But they think that it was her partner. And so I think that it's important to have that training of, you know, if they were to find her, does she exhibit this kind of fracture pattern? Yeah. 

AK

What are the details that would bring us back to a forensic case to lock down what happened to her? And tell the story? 

Haley

Yeah. So I think, yeah, looking at those fracture patterns, if she had fracture patterns, is important, as well as for like emergency room protocols to if someone was to come in exhibiting these fracture types. But then the woman is not reporting. And she's just saying that she fell. 

AK 

Yeah, she fell on a, you know, fell on the staircase. You know, any of the ways that... because, of course, the trauma of being a victim of domestic abuse often leads to underreporting. I hate to be so obvious, but just making sure listeners can, ya know, capture the full context. 

Haley

Yeah. And that's a lot of what I talk about in my paper as well. I even compared accidental fractures as well to my results. And so I did see more accidental fractures or more in the limbs, rather than the face. There are, you know, a high frequency for the face, but it was more of like back, you know, arms legs, right, rather than specific complex that maybe both right, 

AK

You might have multiple falls, whereas in domestic violence, it might just be the ZMC? I'm an insider now, right? Yeah. Well, so there's several things that you said early on about your path to research that I want to come back to just because they're really important to this podcast, and what we try to kind of celebrate. For listeners who are not familiar Masters programs will often have several routes to completion. And you talked about those different, you know, the professional paper route, there are, you know, technical, professional degrees here where you can just do coursework, and you're doing technical coursework, and you meet certification standards. But you chose this third path because you found a research project that inspired or, you know, gave you passion to kind of go for it and follow it further, which we'd love to hear, right, because it's really one of the engines of a great research university is like you get the research bug, and you've gotten it so much that now you're heading off to a PhD. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about that. Why When did you make that choice? And what are you gonna go do in your PhD? 

Haley

I guess I'll start from, I guess, the very beginning. So when I graduated high school I had always kind of had that interest in forensics. And so I started my freshman year here in 2015. In the Forensic Anthropology Department, and I realized I needed a little bit more. I wanted to do more... I don't want to say hard science, but more like anatomy and physiology stuff.   

AK

We could say like foundational science. I know why you're avoiding “hard” -- anthropology professors would be mad at you. But yeah, foundational, like get the physiology, get the anatomy, get the biology. 

Haley

Yeah. And so my, I think it was my sophomore year here. I decided to add on a minor, and I was going to do criminology. And then I found out that still not what I wanted, but I still wanted to do forensics. And so I dropped the minor. And I added on human biology. And so I started double majoring in human bio and forensics. No big deal, it was just the hardest thing in my life. I also had my first son my freshman year. I was actually listening to Annie Belcourt’s, her episode, before I came in here to kind of get an idea. And it's crazy, like how much we have a similar path, because my mom and my brothers also moved over here with me when I started school here, and my mom started her graduate programs as well. And kind of helped out with the baby and stuff.  

AK 

And what did she do her graduate degree in?  

Haley 

She ended up so she went into business. And then she ended up switching to Native American studies. And so she just graduated her master's and Native American studies. 

AK

Fantastic. Yeah. So from the other university. Yeah. We won't we won't talk about that, we won’t even name them.  But no, that's a great story. And I mean, first of all, again, listeners, go check out the Annie Belcourt’s episode, if you haven't, it's one of my favorite. She's an incredible presence. And yeah. Would it be like in the 30s? Episode 30 something? So I'm glad you connected with that story. And I think yeah, that story that you're telling about, you know, from Browning, you did take some coursework at Blackfeet Community College? 

Haley

Yep. So I'm also from the Blackfeet reservation I grew up there. I lived there when I was younger, and then my family kind of moved around because my mom was in college. So was my dad. And then after my parents split up, we went back to Browning. And so I was there from first grade through high school. And so while I was completing my senior year in high school, I was also taking courses at Blackfeet Community College. And so just kind of getting some of those Gen Ed's out of the way. So I got to do my writing one there, which was nice and super... 

AK

Super important as a transition as a bridge. You know, just so happens that tomorrow, the tribal colleges and universities, presidents are going to be on campus tomorrow and Friday. And it's such an important relationship between University of Montana, and the TCUs all those that offer two-year degrees. But then also Salish Kootenai College where we're now working on some cooperative bridge graduate degrees, right. So it's such an important resource educational resource that we're trying to open up and expand for all of our native students across the state. I mean, what you just described is the ideal, right that you get a bridge, you take a couple of courses, you get your feet wet, and you get interested, and then you and then you come to a mountain campus, maybe later. 

Haley

Yeah, for sure. And it's definitely a hard transition. I mean, coming from a reservation school, and then coming to a city. Yeah, and a big university. But I feel like, I definitely have found my way, throughout these years, learning more about who I am as a person as an indigenous person being here on this campus, because I kind of dealt with you know, I'm a lighter skinned native. And so it's like the saying, you know, being too white for the reds, but then being two reds for the white. And so that's a lot of what I've dealt with, but I definitely feel being here on this campus, I've definitely found more of who I am as an indigenous person. 

AK

That’s fantastic. I love to hear that. And, and it's not an easy road, right? I mean, it is a hard road. So but good for you for your resilience and your and of course, you know, as you are saying about Annie, you know that she has a very similar story and she's just wonderful model. You're a role model. Right. That's, that's what we're trying to elevate a little bit that, you know, now you're going on to get a PhD, the highest degree that we offer. It's exciting. 

Haley

Yeah. And it's very exciting. So I guess kind of going back, circling back around to my undergrad. So I think it was in 2017, one of my relatives and classmates Ashley Heavyrunner Lorring went missing on the Blackfeet reservation. And so that kind of pushed me more into going into forensics as well. And, like I said, the anatomy and physiology side of things too. Because I wanted to learn those skills of being able to do recognize a burial, and how to do like the field work side of things. And then as I got into my graduate program, now, I'm kind of learning the lab side of things. And as I move into my PhD, now I'm trying to, you know, learn the DNA side of things. So I can kind of have this more well-rounded, skill set, I guess, under my belt so that I can you know, help.  

AK

So your ultimate goal would be to continue to work in law enforcement or in the public sphere?  Well, I mean, obviously, police work, but at the state agency level? What do you imagine, as your kind of outcome? 

Haley

I mean, I don't think we really have a position back home that, you know, where I would technically fit under. And so I know that they started, they had one position for just one person that was solely working on the MMIW cases. But I don't know if they still have that. And so I would just kind of, you know, be a resource wherever I can kind of fit, you know, 

AK 

Yeah, yeah, find a way to fit it in. Yeah. Well, so tell me a little bit more about your research itself. DNA extraction is kind of one technique that you're going to start working on with your adviser Meredith Snow, who specializes in in that. Yeah. Tell us more about that. Why? Why that interest? What does it allow us to learn? 

Haley

Yeah, so, um, like we were talking about earlier, it is a little bit of a controversial topic. But I think it is important to have people that can do this, especially an indigenous person to help, you know, when there are indigenous remains that pop up. So basically, you'd be extracting DNA from the remains. And then you would have to compare it to living members in order to make that connection match. Yeah. And I think it would be beneficial to have a database that just the tribes can oversee themselves rather than like 23-and-me and ancestry.com. Where, you know, you kind of don't know where your information goes after that.  

AK 

Yeah. Well, speaking of controversial, right, there's so much just in the last year or two about what happens to that information and how it gets aggregated. Law enforcement has been using it to solve cold cases. People have been using it to sort of mine their ancestry or make connections, especially if they're adopted. But that data is kind of... it's in a private sphere. And it's a way so your idea is that the tribe would then have a little bit more control over the database. Yeah. What's the controversy side of it? Everything you're saying, in other words, just seems kind of like.. Yeah, well, that could be really great technique.  

Haley

See, so when I present this to tribal members, though, we also have to take in consideration the cultural side of things. So like I was saying, picking and poking at our ancestors, you know, I don't really look at it that way. But I'm trying to find the best way so that they can rest so that their souls can rest. And a lot of tribes and a lot of tribal members don't really believe in what would you call it? Disrupting these remains, I guess. And so, you know, some of these remains weren't even meant to be dug up in the first place. But there are instances where, you know, back in the day, there were people that find skulls, and then they're just like, “Oh, hey, yes, Cool. Cool. I'm gonna take it home and like, on my shelf...” 

AK

They treat it like an object. Like, like a, like an object for a museum, which, in fact, many of them were. Rather than treating them with dignity and respect to human culture. And so that's an ugly part of anthropology’s history, the going all the way back to the 19th century, when the field grew. It went around the world that forensic anthropologists, but you know, cultural anthropologists were pulling remains, obviously cultural objects, but human bodies, that seems to be a whole nother level of ethical problems. So, so we have these remains. And then the question is, now that they already are here, what do we do?  

Haley

What are we to do with them now? And how are we going to get them back to their people and to their families? And so that's kind of where I was trying to come from as I can be that person, to kind of take on that role, even though it is controversial. I definitely think it is something that we need to start talking about, because especially for my generation, the generations after me, and these recent issues of you know, MMIW and the residential school remains all coming up. I definitely think we need to have a plan in place for that? 

AK

Yeah. And I think I think the fact that there are prominent now -- the Secretary of the Interior, the US Poet Laureate are both Native American women. And I actually think that's helped a ton, because it's brought to national attention some of these issues. So that we're seeing now the Department of the Interior is actually requiring inventories and discussions of the boarding school era. And so it's the first time our federal government has actually taken seriously at the national level that this has to be addressed. Right. So it's, so it's one of our national embarrassments, right, it's a deep shame that people have, you know, repressed and so you know, this, this discussion at least brings it to the surface and yeah, can start talking about it. 

Haley

Yeah. So that's kind of why I'm trying to, like, push this along a little bit to like, you know, what are we to do now? Yeah, I think we need to have a plan in place. Although, too, I think we should also acknowledge the cultural side of things, too. I definitely think there are, there is a time and place for everything. There is like a full process, we'd have to go through like ceremonial things, as well as the scientific things to 

AK

That that's really important. So, “ceremonial,” meaning finding a meaningful way to engage willingness in the right way. Yeah, tribe so that they can actually bring that that soul to rest. Offer some peace to that soul and the families. 

Haley

Yeah, yeah. So even though we have to go through these, you know, I don't wanna say super destructive processes, because it's not really that destructive, trying to take the DNA out. But it is, you know, taking some of the bone dust, that's technically what it is. And so we're also trying to find other ways to, to come up with non-invasive techniques that we can do this as well.  

AK 

Say more about that.  

Haley 

I mean, just some of the studies that I've read. So like taking, I can't even think of what it's called... But taking stuff off of the tooth, okay. Which people don't really look at that as invasive. 

AK

They see it as less invasive. You're not changing the skeletal structure. 

Haley

Yeah. Yeah. So things like that. 

AK  

It's so funny. I mean, it's funny is not the right word. But it's so interesting, the language that you use. “Extraction,” “invasion,” “disruption.” Even the language we use to talk about, it suggests the taboo and associated with disturbing remains, and that's fairly universal, right? People don't like their ancestors. But yeah, to be disrupted. And so it's treating that with respect and recognizing the sacred quality of the human life at the core of it. What a delicate balance here.  

Haley

Yeah, I know. So it's just trying to find a way to do this all correctly. And, you know, like I said, go through a whole process. It's not just, you know, start drilling into bone.  

AK

That would be just be replicating this bad problem of the past. But try to do it thoughtfully. And, well, that's wonderful. I mean, you know, I can't think of a better person to be trying to take this on you. And thank you for picking it up. 

Haley

Yeah. And, you know, having Meradeth on my side, who is, like I said, our main DNA person in our department, she's super knowledgeable on all of this. And so she's going to be teaching me how to, you know, kind of go about this. And then I've also decided to also go home and talk to, you know, my elders about, you know, if it's okay that I do this, and like, how you know, how to kind of go about all of this as well. 

AK

Yeah. Fantastic. I saw you at GradCon. Tell us a little bit about your experience of just being in person at a conference, especially after the pandemic?  

Haley

Oh, yeah. So it was kind of, I guess the second time I presented a poster, but this was the first time I actually presented on like my thesis work. More, I guess, research that I've done for this project. So it was great. And I had all my friends around. They were also presenting their work as well. And yeah, it was nice. And then my parents were there to support me as well as feel my friends, too.  

AK

Yeah, I got to talk to your parents a little bit there. And that was awesome. You know, that's something we see all the time at GradCon. What was that like having this sort of family support network?   

Haley

Yeah, it's awesome. Having my family be there like every step of the way with me.  

AK

How many times did you have to present your poster? How many times did you have to talk about it? Did you keep track? Was it 1520?  

Haley

I don't think it was that much, I kind of would just like start talking and then someone else would walk up. And then I would kind of like repeat myself a little bit and just kind of fill everyone in on, on my work and everything.  

AK

Part of what we do in Confluence is to try to kind of talk a little bit about... to demystify things, right? So for someone who hasn't done a poster presentation, you know, you sit in front of a poster with all your data, right? And then but the idea is that you're supposed to be so in command of it, that you can just talk about it. And yeah, fluid way. It's really good practice about distilling your research down and telling a clean story about what you discovered. And allow in opening up people to kind of engage with the data.  

Haley

Yeah, so I for sure had this whole spiel, you know, written out practice before I went in there, and then I ended up just feeling so comfortable, where I could just, you know, people would come up and ask me questions, and then I would answer them and just, you know, kind of take them all through my project. So it was really nice.  

AK

Yeah. And that's the value of the preparation because then you can throw it away and yeah, in the conversation. Yeah. Well, you did an amazing job talking to you at that conference, but of course you won on the basis of your video presentation, which was obviously impressed the judges. Congratulations.  

Haley

Thanks.  

AK 

Well, thank you for sharing your story with us. And thank you for joining us on Confluence.

Haley 

Thanks for having me.