Friday, April 18, 2025
  Research, Academics, Recognitions, Accolades, Around Campus

By Victoria Brito Morales

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – APRIL 18, 2025 – Dr. Carina Marques, assistant professor of Anthropology in the UTRGV College of Liberal Arts and the School of Integrative Biological and Chemical Sciences (SIBCS), has been appointed president of the Texas Association of Biological Anthropologists.

Marques will serve a one-year appointment as president. She has been with UTRGV since 2022.

As president, Marques and UTRGV will host the next TABA conference at UTRGV for the first time. In 2024, UTRGV students participated for the first time in the TABA conference. That year, a UTRGV student earned third place for best poster presentation, an achievement that provides motivation to pursue research and professional development opportunities.

“I never imagined that, as a new member of TABA, I would gain the support and trust of my colleagues across Texas universities to serve in this role,” Marques said. “They were extremely supportive, and I had a warm welcome to the association. Being elected president of TABA is both an honor and a surprise.”

Marques said the appointment highlights the growing recognition of UTRGV’s biological and forensic anthropology programs and the research agenda at the state and national levels.

“My appointment as president of TABA places UTRGV’s recently developed biological anthropology and forensic anthropology program on the map,” she said. “The presidency of TABA is a recognition of our merit and of our colleagues from well-established and renowned biological anthropology programs across Texas. This appointment signals that our program is being acknowledged by long-standing institutions in the field.”

At UTRGV, Marques has participated with UTRGV students in Operation Identification, or OpID, directed by Dr. Kate Spradley at TSU, which identifies and repatriates unidentified human remains found along or near the South Texas border through community outreach, scientific analysis, advocacy and collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organizations.

In 2024, Marques received the first grant for UTRGV from the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice for a forensic research project aimed at transforming age-at-death estimation in forensic science. Also in 2024, Marques was awarded an NSF research grant in biological anthropology. 

ABOUT TABA

The Texas Association of Biological Anthropologists provides opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, professors and professionals to share research, collaborate on new projects and engage with fellow biological anthropologists in Texas.

TABA was founded at the University of Texas at Austin by biological anthropologists wanting to connect the world of bioanthropology in Texas. Meetings are once a year at a Texas university, to support research presentation, promote connections and provide opportunities for student, professor and faculty growth.



ABOUT UTRGV

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.