My work sits at an intersection of biology, narrative, and what it means to live and die. So much of what is important to me comes together through this project: meaning making, storytelling, curiosity, and scientific inquiry. I have always been interested in humans’ past as a way to inform our present and future. In college, my interest in human material culture shifted towards ultimate explanations for human nature and the evolutionary framework for our species. At the start of graduate school, I took my first human anatomy class because I thought it would make me a better anthropologist. This turned into a vocational calling to teach human gross anatomy, and that continues to inform my scholarship as my students and I navigate what death and dying could mean in an educational context – what that means for our own professional and personal lives. Because we are alive, we will eventually die, and that can be sad, but those who have made anatomical gifts show us the ways that people can make a lasting, positive impact on the world even after they have passed. They are our best anatomical teachers. Similarly, while I never wish for the death of the wonderful animals who populate Gombe National Park, I do hope for the chance to engage with their mortal remains to help us answer fundamental questions about what skeletons can teach us, what stories skeletons can tell. I am interested in hard tissues as a way to address theoretical issues like the osteological paradox, but to me skeletons are also beautiful, offering the chance to craft individual narratives. Because selection acts at the level of the individual, life stories and histories for individual baboons not only offer points of interest, but ways to understand selection at a very detailed level.