The Negaunee Integrative Research Center

Starting this fall, Maisa will continue her doctoral research: “Consumption, Circulation, and Transition of Copper Alloys in Ancient Ecuador (300 BCE–1400 CE).” Through her work, she seeks to bring valuable insights into the metallurgical practices of ancient Ecuador, further enriching the Field Museum's ongoing scholarship and collections-based research. Her work explores the complex histories of ancient metallurgy and promises to shed new light on the cultural significance of copper in pre-Columbian South America. Maisa looks forward to contributing to the museum’s vibrant research community while continuing to grow as a scholar and scientist. 

The specimen’s exceptional preservation, and Akiko and Connie’s expert preparation, and CT scans and UV light imaging, revealed important data about everything from the evolution of bird skulls to Archaeopteryx’s ability to fly. The study was covered in dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, the Guardian, The People’s Daily, Reuters, Popular Science, The Jerusalem Post, Discover Magazine, The Japan News, The Independent, Gizmodo, CNN, Smithsonian Magazine, and many more.

The combination of Bennu’s relative proximity to Earth and its immense age makes the asteroid an ideal candidate to study the types of organic minerals that existed at the start of the Solar System and eventually developed into life. “The compounds in these rocks came to Earth before life formed and they were part of the building blocks of life,” says Philipp Heck, Curator and Head of the Robert A. Pritzker Curator of Meteoritics and Polar Studies. “We are still trying to quantify how much material came from space to Earth to make life possible.” Bennu’s lack of contamination is key to the research: unlike space rocks that have fallen to Earth as meteorites, the Bennu sample has never been exposed to the Earth’s atmosphere, microbes, or weathering, meaning scientists can study the properties of the asteroid and its organic composition and compare it to the samples that fell to Earth naturally—eliminating the task of distinguishing what properties come from the original asteroid and what comes from its time here on the Earth. Resident Graduate Student Yuke Zheng (University of Chicago), and member of the OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team, has been working on a comparative study of carbon-rich meteorites at the Field for the last two years. “It’s like a puzzle,” she said. “This sample of Bennu is the last piece.”