April Dental Anthropology Association – Annual Report and Business Meeting Minutes
March 2025
OFFICER REPORTS
Report from Marin Pilloud, President of Dental Anthropology Association
Welcome everyone! This is my last meeting as president of the DAA. I want to start off by thanking all the officers for all their work over the years, and I thank you all for being here and for continuing to be members. It has truly been an honor to serve you as president of the DAA.
During my time:
Finalized Code of Ethics - posted on the website
Started Innovation Award
Grew the website - videos!
Also - get your swag!
I leave the DAA in excellent hands and am excited to see what Dr. Paul does!
Report from Dori Kenessey, Secretary of Dental Anthropology Association
As of 3/12/2025, DAA currently has 102 active members based on payment of dues. That’s a 35% decrease from last year. Of the active membership, 27 (26%) are student members and 76 (74%) are faculty, instructors, or dental professionals. Thirty of these individuals are new members as of last year’s meeting. From last year, we have seen a decline in both student and regular membership, but active membership remains distributed similar to the previous year. Members are reminded a month before their membership is set to expire to renew. Since the last meeting, the officers have met once in February to discuss Association business and to organize meeting activities.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to encourage our membership to maintain their active status, please let our officers know. I am resigning as Secretary with the end of these meetings due to no longer working in academia, but I enjoyed serving you all, working with the other wonderful officers, having exciting conversations about teeth, and just generally seeing the exciting work members of this organization do 🙂
Report from Christina Nicholas, Treasurer of Dental Anthropology Association
As of 3/14/25, the DAA reserves sit at $28909.56, an increase from 2024. From March 22 2024 to March 14, 2025, DAA spent a total of $3417.55, while bringing in $4459.39, for a net of $1041.84.
Costs incurred include AABA-related costs, DAJ journal charges, CrossRef charges, fees to host our website, fees associated with our online payment system, and the 2024 Dahlberg prize. Income included membership fees, donations, and Bone Clones royalties ($1817.81). In 2024, the new DAA Innovation Award was established, adding a minor cost for plaques for the winner(s). Expenses in 24-25 increased approximately 26.6% over expenses in 23-24 ($719.03), while revenues decreased 34.78% ($2377.55). Journal fees and conference expenses were both notably higher, likely reflecting inflationary changes. Revenue decreases reflect both fluctuations in Bone Clone royalties and a decline in membership fees/donations. Taking a multi-year view, however, reserves have seen a nearly 40% increase since 3/21/22.
Report from Kristin Krueger, Executive Board Member of Dental Anthropology Association
My role this year has been to support the other officers in their tasks, as well as assisting with organizing the workshop. To that end, I set up the workshop registration in Eventbrite. I look forward to continuing to learn more about how I might help the other officers and positively impact the DAA. Thank you to Marin for her leadership and guidance this year, and for the other officers who made me feel welcome during my first year in this role.
Report from Diana Malarchik, Communications Officer of Dental Anthropology Association
Our Facebook page currently has around 4, 900 members. Our Twitter profile has been deleted. We have joined BlueSky our name is the same! So please come and find us over there and follow along.
Our FB page does appear to be holding interest, and we do have specific questions you have to answer to become a member, which seems to be helping to limit bots! As always, if you do see things that should be posted or you think are spam, please report it so it can get removed as soon as possible.
Over the last four years I have been so happy to work and serve as your communications officer – and I am sorry I can’t be there this year (traveling with a seven month old is a lot!). I know that the next person to fill this role is going to do a great job!
Thank you for everything!
Report from Cassandra Boyer, Student Member of Dental Anthropology Association
Our annual DAA networking event is being held this evening at James Joyce Irish Pub as an informal opportunity for networking with others interested in teeth.
I am currently live posting on Bluesky and posted updates on the FB page.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Report from Rebecca George, Editor of Dental Anthropology
I’d like to thank the editorial board for their first year of service - they have assisted in preliminary reviews of articles, as well as soliciting reviewers for our submission. We have been publishing one article per issue for the last year due to low submission rates. Much like in the last year, many of the submissions received are not appropriate for our journal (mostly dental research or technical notes lacking an anthropological focus) or are not able to reach a publishable quality through the review process. I am looking to add a book editor back to the editorial board - it has been several years since we’ve had one. This individual would be responsible for receiving inquiries about book reviews and soliciting reviewers. Please email me if you are interested or know of someone who is. A wider call will go out in the coming months if needed. As always, if you have manuscripts you wish to publish, especially student articles, we would love to consider them. I am also open to discussing any special issue topics you may have - please just email me at rgeorge@wcu.edu.
Report from Erin Blankeship-Sefczek, Chair of Student Prize Committee
2024-2025 Student Prize Committee report:
The Christy G. Turner II/Cambridge University Press prize was evaluated virtually this year. It was opened to students who submitted a dental anthropology-related poster accepted via peer review at any professional meeting from March 2024-March 2025. Applicants submitted a .pdf of their poster and a three-minute video walk-through presentation. As with years past, this format allowed for more submissions and coordinating schedules to watch all submitted presentations.
Winners receive $100 book credit provided by Cambridge University Press. Once again we give a very big thank you to our friends at Cambridge University Press for their continued support of our students through this prize. This year we have funds to recognize up to three posters.
For the 2024-2025 year we have one winner:
Gabriela Maroto from Salisbury University for their project titled “Getting to the Point: Assessing dietary signal from tooth sharpness in the postcanine dentition in primates”
The Albert A. Dahlberg Prize is awarded annually to the best student paper submitted to the Dental Anthropology Association. Dr. Dahlberg was among the first modern researchers to describe variations in dental morphology and the endowed fund continues to support student research. We encourage our members to donate to the Albert A. Dahlberg Fund to continue this prize. The winner of the Dahlberg Prize will receive a cash award, a one-year membership in the Dental Anthropology Association, and an invitation to publish the paper in Dental Anthropology, the journal of the Association. This year we have funds to recognize up to two papers.
For the 2024-2025 year we have one winner:
Andrew Kennedy from the University of New Mexico for their manuscript titled “Early Life Stress Exposure and Sex Differences in Behavioral Development in Wild Chimpanzees: Using Tooth Histology and Digital Light Microscopy”
Congratulations, everyone!
Report from Donovan Adams Chair of Workshop Committee
This year’s workshop was “Perikymata Imaging Using Conventional Microscopy,” hosted by Emily Moes and Heather Edgar from University of New Mexico. This workshop involved using Dino-lite technology for perikymata analysis, creating photomontages of a tooth surface, and measuring the distance between perikymata in ImageJ. We had nearly 50 registered people with about 16 online and 15 in-person participants in attendance. These numbers are slightly down from the previous year but likely reflect the requirement for DAA membership implemented for workshop attendance.
If anyone has ideas or interests that they would like to see as a workshop in the future, please reach out to Donovan Adams. I aim to have workshops hosted by people from a diversity of backgrounds, institutions, regions, and career levels.
Report from Marin Pilloud, Chair of Election Committee
Two notices were sent out to the DAA membership early in 2025 soliciting nominations for two DAA Officer positions:
o Secretary (4-year term) - 2 accepted: Brenna Hassett and Kent Johnson
o Communications Officer (2-year term) - Zana Sims and Reecie Dern
Nominations closed on February 28th, 2025, Each nominee was asked to provide a short paragraph about their background and interest in the role. An election was held with voting open from 9/10 March to 13 March and the winners are:
o Secretary - Brenna Hassett
o Communications Officer - Reecie Dern
Innovation Award - Marin Pilloud
The deadline for the Innovation Award was extended to 10 March 2025. And, i am pleased to announce the winner as: Heather Edgar
New business:
Hand over “gavel” to Kathleen - even though I never got it :(