Isabell Villasana

Isabell has a fascination for antiquities of all kinds, from observing and cataloging at-risk archaeological digs in the Middle East via satellite imagery, to the rigors of Dragon Boat racing, an ancient canoeing sport in which she’s trained and competed for UC San Diego.

Isabell must set aside racing for a while, to turn that time and focus to the honor and work involved in having been selected for a McNair Fellowship, a highly competitive national program. “Becoming part of a Dragon Boat team is a huge accomplishment because it recognizes that I have established a degree of skill in something that I formerly knew nothing about,” she says. “The decision to take a break reflects that I am able to set limits when they need to be set. It is important to set high goals for yourself and not be afraid to fail; but there is a marked difference between fear of failure and reckless confidence.”

She’s human after all, and “as far as I can recall I have been interested in how people are people – the most wonderfully strange species on the planet. By luck, fate and audacity, I have the pleasure to pursue anthropology. I’m hooked.” Isabell is taking full advantage of her college years to explore the different channels in this broad field, and has stumbled onto a personal revelation. “The work in my current lab is not glamorous – it’s counting hundreds of seeds, weighing them, recording and reorganizing them – but it has led me to environmental archaeology, which grants insight into how we interact with the physical world.” The class has sparked a passion and the determination to earn a PhD and ultimately a professorship.

And if not imparting knowledge, she has a plan to expand it. “It may seem odd that that an archaeology major would correlate with a career in public service. However, professors of archaeology often contribute to the dialogue of institutional inequalities and by working for non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. In addition to becoming a professor for the sake of sharing knowledge I am also interested in working for these organizations. One area of research I am particularly concerned with is how we measure crop yields and how traditional practices of agriculture are disappearing with the introduction of Green Revolution practices.”

For now, Isabell is focusing on graduating from college with high marks and as little debt as possible. “The entirety of paying for college falls on me, so whatever I cannot take care of today will be a burden tomorrow. As such, I’m very grateful for this scholarship.”