The Harvard Summer Program in Kenya commenced on the morning of June 1, 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya. There are 16 students in the program, 9 of whom are Harvard University undergraduates, 1 of whom is a graduate student from China, and 5 of whom are students from Kenya at various stages in their academic [...]
For the final two weeks of the fieldschool, the students returned across to the West side of Lake Turkana to the TBI Turkwel campus. Although it was hard to say goodbye to the wonderful staff, wildlife and landscapes of Ileret, we were also excited to get back to Turkwel, especially to see the camp [...]
Hello! It’s Ruth and Libby here to tell you all about our human evolution module, taught by Dr. Carrie Mongle and Dr. Louise Leakey. We started our week out with some lectures about why we are here in the Turkana Basin to learn about human evolution. East Africa and Kenya specifically have been at [...]
Hello readers of the TBI Origins Field School blog, providing updates and a recap of this past week are students Maddie, an undergraduate at Stony Brook University, and David, a postgraduate student at Kenyatta University! After a relaxing Sunday at Ileret spent playing football alongside the locals at the nearby village, and some sodas [...]
In our final week of Geology, Dr. Gathogo took the students out in the field to explore the Miocene and Pliocene sediments in the Turkana Basin. This provided an opportunity for the students to apply their sedimentology skills. An early morning excursion to Lothagam on Tuesday had students practice their geological skills, which [...]
Hello all, this entry of the blog comes to you from Edmond and Phoebe, two students at the TBI Origins Field School. On Monday (the day after we had completed the Great Grevy's Rally) we all flew in two groupsout to TBI Turkwel, Turkana County. Once at the Mpala airstrip, the tiny [...]
The students spent their weekend at Mpala Research Centre taking part in a unique community science research project. The Grevy’s zebra is a distinctive and endangered species of zebra found in Kenya, but its exact population size is unknown. As a threatened species, knowing how many Grevy’s zebra remain, and their distribution and movements [...]
The first week of the semester kicked off with the ecology module at Mpala Research Centre (MRC) led by Dr Dino Martins, who is one of the world’s leading experts in East African ecology. The plants and animals found across the MRC are highly diverse and give students the opportunity to understand how topography, [...]
Happy new year! I hope you all had peaceful holidays. The spring 2024 TBI field school is off to a great start. The students arrived in Nairobi on the 18th of January and we spent the first two nights at the amazing Wildebeest Eco camp in Nairobi. There the students had a chance to [...]
The Turkana Basin Institute is delighted to welcome our new Chief Operations Officer, Dr. CJ Jones, and Chief Finance Officer, Mr. Daniel Mbugua. Daniel Mbugua, CFO and CJ Jones, COO on a recent trip to Ileret. Daniel has over fifteen years of hands-on expertise in various leadership and management roles having worked in [...]
We’ve had an incredible first few weeks at TBI Turkwel! After our time at Mpala, we’ve hit the ground running and have been really busy visiting the incredible sites in the Turkana Basin and enjoying life at TBI! As part of the Environments, Ecosystems and Evolution course taught by Dr. Nicholas Taylor, we created toilet [...]
Welcome to the field school where we study more than just rocks ;) Are you wondering what engineering students do here at TBI? If so, this is the post for you! I’m writing to give you a little insight on the work we do. But first, let me introduce myself and my peer: My name [...]
Hello again! I’m Ian, and I’m back this week with Owich to talk about the beginning of our last module, Prehistoric Archaeology, taught by Prof. Sonia Harmand. Dr. Sonia Harmand talking the students through the stratigraphy near the Nadung'a sites. We’re now in our last two weeks here at TBI, and it really [...]
We arrived back to TBI Turkwel Campus from Nariokotome on Tuesday, tired but happy. The day was spent resting and preparing for the final presentations in our archeology module. By Wednesday, everyone was back to full gear and we spent most of the day working on our presentations and the final tasks of the module. [...]
Hello everyone my name is Flor Perez and I am from New York. I graduated from Stony Brook University in 2020. I am one of the 2 students who will be completing the graduate certificate in human origins program at the end of this field school. On top of earning the graduate certificate you earn [...]
Hello, I am Tom Otube, an environmental science graduate from Kabarak University. This week we started our Human Evolution module which is taught by Dr. Carrie Mongle and Dr. Louise Leakey. On the first day, Dr. Mongle took us through the course objectives and an overview of human evolution by providing the historical context of [...]
Meet Rashid Nafwa and Vincent Okoth, students from the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) working with the telescope at TBI Ileret. Rashid and Vincent are completing an attachment to meet their final year requirements of gaining practical experience. Vincent Okoth and Rashid Nafwa preparing for a night of observations Astronomy in general is [...]
Hello! I’m Ian McMahon, a graduate student here at TBI. I graduated from SUNY Potsdam in 2020 with a degree in archaeology, specializing in human evolution and origins. This week, we started our paleontology module, taught by Dr. Ellen Miller, learning about the MIocene vertebrates of the Turkana Basin. The Miocene lasted from 23.03 to [...]
Hello! My name is Owich and I am an anthropology graduate from the University of Nairobi. We began our second week of geology with a morning classroom session with Dr. Gathogo taking us through the short Cretaceous window, and reconstruction of the Turkana basin geography and particularly the Cenozoic (Age of mammals) rich-sediments. In summary, [...]
Hello, my name is Amelia and I am currently majoring in Anthropology through SUNY Albany in New York. This week we dove into our geology module! We started off by learning the basics of using both the Brunton compass, along with more modern technology by using a handheld GPS system linked to satellites for navigation. [...]