It’s hard to keep up with George Washington University senior anthropology student Lucia Kustra’s busy schedule.
On some afternoons, you can find her in Associate Professor of Anthropology Carson Murray’s primate behavior lab in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, decoding chimpanzee behavior records—some of them in Swahili—from Gombe National Park in Tanzania, one of the world’s most renowned field sites.
Other times, she’s working on her Luther Rice Fellowship research, puzzling through a quirky ant fishing technique where primates probe tree holes with sticks to hunt for insects.
And when she’s not studying for her biological anthropology and archaeology double major or her master’s in human paleobiology, she’s the newly minted president of Delta Iota Gamma—or DIG, GW’s first pre-professional anthropology fraternity.
Individually, any of those roles could fill a student’s calendar. Together, they’ve put Kustra at the forefront of shaping the anthropology community on campus and beyond.
“Humans are naturally curious. We want to know every single thing about our past, our present, our future. Anthropology and archaeology tell us about ourselves,” she said.
Kustra’s days are packed with data entry, field note translation, leadership meetings and assignment writing. Most of her research revolves around the chimpanzee communities at Gombe, where Murray is a lead investigator in a project that has produced the most extensive great ape dataset in the world. Famed anthropologist Jane Goodall first initiated long-term chimpanzee research at Gombe in 1960, leading to ground-breaking discoveries about chimpanzee behavior and human evolution.
For both her lab assistant duties and her Luther Rice project, Kustra examines two chimpanzee communities in the Tanzania site—the northern Mitumba, which consists of approximately 40 primates, and the bigger Kasekela, with about 60 members. A female named Trezia emigrated from Mitumba to Kasekela in 1991—and may have brought the unusual ant fishing practice with her.
“This is one of the few studies to demonstrate cultural transmission, and I’m hoping it leads to studying the role of female immigrants in novel cultural trade acquisition more generally,” Kustra said.
Murray and her colleagues at the Gombe Research Consortium said Kustra has made invaluable efforts in their research. “I have always been amazed by how quickly Lucia synthesizes the nuances of the long-term data and asks provocative questions that greatly enrich our research agenda. Since her tenure in our lab, every project has benefitted from her insight and perspective,” Murray said.
Outside the lab and the classroom, Kustra leads an entirely different kind of anthropology project at DIG—one rooted in mentorship, networking and campus community. Started by seven GW students in 2018, DIG has grown to about 90 members from across the university. While it began with a focus on anthropology fields, it now includes students majoring in art history, journalism, international affairs and other disciplines.
“DIG provides a structured way for students interested in anthropology and related fields to get to know each other and support each other in finding research opportunities, applying to grad schools and looking for jobs,” said Associate Professor of Anthropology W. Andrew Barr, an honorary DIG member who often wears fraternity gear around campus. “I wish I had DIG when I was an undergraduate!”
Anthropology ambassador
Kustra first caught the anthropology bug at her suburban Illinois middle school when a research project introduced her to the field’s critical thinking components. A volunteer position at Chicago’s Field Museum inspired her to target a career in anthropology. In her first year at GW, she declared her double major and sought out a research position in Murray’s lab.
“This path is what I’m passionate about,” she said. “I knew from the start I was never going to look back, and I’d enjoy every minute of it.”
As one of Murray’s assistants, Kustra pages through detailed notes on chimpanzee behavior from Gombe field scientists. “They write down almost minute-by-minute observations,” she said, from mother-infant relationships to vocalizations and dominance hierarchies. “It’s lines and lines and lines of data.” A good portion of the field notes are in Swahili—which, through sheer repetition, Kustra has come to recognize. “My Swahili has gotten pretty good,” she laughed.
Her Luther Rice project was inspired by a 2012 paper in which Murray and colleagues documented chimpanzees in Kasekela using modified twigs, grass and leaf midribs to extract carpenter ants from their nests in living trees or dead wood. That behavior hadn’t been observed in Kasekela before the chimp Trezia emigrated from the Mitumba community—leading researchers to hypothesize that she introduced the foraging method to her new group.
Kustra noted that the practice is highly inefficient; the few ants collected provide minimal nutrition in terms of calories, although they are critical sources of protein, vitamins and minerals. She and other scientists can only theorize about why the behavior persists: A snack between hunting and termite fishing seasons? Practice for juveniles learning motor skills? But Kustra’s data shows it’s continued for decades.
Her research goal is to determine that the behavior is now a firmly established cultural trait. “From there we can start to ask deeper questions as to why this behavior is happening and what function it has evolutionarily,” she said. “In this line of research, we don’t reinvent the wheel as much as push the needle forward.”
Meanwhile, her new role as DIG president, after previously serving as its recruitment chair and treasurer, reflects her central presence in the university’s anthropology culture. The popular fraternity not only offers networking and career opportunities—Kustra herself secured an American Society of Overseas Research internship through DIG—but also hosts social events like book clubs and even an end-of-semester prom. In a survey of her students, Anthropology Chair Brenda Bradley, also an honorary DIG member, found that a third mentioned DIG as a reason for choosing an anthropology major or minor. “DIG members are basically brand ambassadors for anthropology.” she said.
And Kustra said expanding membership to other disciplines has added a variety of perspectives and experience to the organization. “Our diversity as an organization makes us strong,” she noted.
Indeed, at DIG social events, Kustra has found herself swapping chimpanzee stories with fellow archaeologists uncovering ancient civilizations, art history majors specializing in Greco-Roman sculptures and journalism students interning with national media outlets. “Every student probably has a friend or two from DIG in their classes,” she said. “We’re everywhere!”