00:00.00 David Howe 1 last thing I didn't say is the video doesn't go anywhere so you're you're good like it's just so we can see each other and talk. Okay so 3 2 1 welcome to episode one forty seven of a life neuron podcast where we investigate the careers of those doing nope. 00:05.40 McKenna Litynski Sweet. 00:16.88 David Howe Back that up Carlton's not here. Welcome to episode one forty seven of lifeners podcast where we investigate the careers and research of those living live and ruins I am your cot David I am your host david e and Howe and i' am joined by my co-hosts Conor Johnn and Conor Johnnon for this week's episode. We are joined by Mckenna Littinsky ah newly minted ph d student at the University Of Wyoming and we say newly minted because she literally just defended her master's disease this past week and we snagged her as soon as we could Mckenna is also the youngest person we know in graduate school. Let alone have a master's degree. We'll talk about that. Ah, her field work and research took place at you guessed it the lapr mammoth site in New Hampshire just kidding Wyoming like everything else we talk about and let's get into all that and what she'll be doing for her ph d welcome to the show Mckenna. 01:01.87 McKenna Litynski Thank you so much. Yeah, it's such an honor to be here Honestly I've listened to your podcast so much So it's kind of surreal being in this position of being interviewed. So thanks for having me. 01:12.83 David Howe There will be better things on your Cv than doing this podcast I know that. But. 01:18.23 archpodnet Yeah, you probably shouldn't put this on your Tv I don't might not look. 01:21.29 McKenna Litynski I Don't know No no, no, but seriously I'm I'm very excited. 01:31.10 archpodnet Um, can I ask you how you are like feeling in general post Master's degree or post defense I should say. 01:38.56 McKenna Litynski Yeah, yeah, it's very surreal. Um I mean I just offended like four days ago. Um, so I'm very fresh off of the defense. Um. I was quite nervous going into it but also kind of confident because I worked really hard for my research and I knew the topic pretty well. So I think coming off of that I'm very excited. Um that I get to be called master Mckenna Latinski know um that's pretty cool. Um I'm also. Pretty relieved. Um, just to know that the process is done and I can take some time to work on my other publications. My other projects work on you know, helping my students more in my ta position things like that. Um, but yeah, overall I'm just like do I really have a master's it's it's very weird. 02:30.00 David Howe It is a it is a weird feeling for sure. Connor and I have also gone through that. Um, because it's like you're not a ph d you don't get like a new title. You're not Dr. Mckener Dr. David but you're like just. 02:32.81 McKenna Litynski Yeah. 02:44.28 David Howe You have a a higher degree and you have to tell people. Oh actually I have ° and it's like a weird weird situation to be I don't know how you feel about that counter. But. 02:52.45 archpodnet Yeah, well and so I get to fill out like an extra step in some things. It's like what is your highest level education. Oh I went to graduate school check. Um, but also I feel like there is a weight on my shoulders when I was doing my my master's degree and I think that weight gets lifted. 02:54.22 David Howe Yeah. 02:58.40 McKenna Litynski Yeah. 03:09.69 archpodnet Once you defend and I like felt at peace for like the first time in a long time and. 03:15.83 McKenna Litynski Yeah, it's a good way to describe it because like your 2 years are leaning up to this defense like this one moment in your life that only lasts a couple hours. Um. So yeah I understand that feeling a little bit I think it's going to take me a couple more days to like truly feel it and be like oh my gosh I really am done but but yeah, yeah. 03:34.53 David Howe Yeah. 03:36.47 archpodnet Right? Ride the high while you can I will say write it out. 03:39.52 David Howe 1 of my favorite nights of my life was my master's thesis defense in the party after it was just like just that relief like if it was so nice of years of just mental trauma and stress and anxiety and like all of that in grad school into like okay I'm done. 03:49.46 archpodnet And then. 03:59.16 David Howe Except you are not done because you are doing another what four or five years of ph d either. 04:02.26 McKenna Litynski Yeah, at the University wyoming yep, hopping into that Ph D program I don't know if I'm crazy or I'm just interesting I don't know. 04:07.56 archpodnet What were. 04:15.40 David Howe You're ahead of the curve. Um. 04:17.30 archpodnet Ah, um, and I think we'll get. We'll get dive deeper into that. Um and kind of see where your research is going but to start us off what is kind of like your first memory with archeology history The past dinosaurs asteroids. 04:34.62 David Howe Goblins. 04:34.72 archpodnet Meteorites goblins. 04:37.11 McKenna Litynski Yeah, it's a really good question. Um, it's something that's like I think bigger than just like this interview. But um I feel like my first instances of like archeology per se are like the typical Indiana Jones like watching. Those movies and being like oh he's stealing so from something from a cave of there's a boulder rolling down to kill him cool. That's archeology. You know I mean obviously I've seen a couple of documentaries but I didn't as a kid I never really understood the archeological process very well. It's just like cool findings right. 05:04.30 David Howe Um. 05:13.90 McKenna Litynski Like Mayans and Egyptians and just cool shit for lack of better words across the school ah across the world. Um, but yeah I don't think it was really until my undergrad that I realized what that. 05:18.13 David Howe They write. 05:31.21 McKenna Litynski Discipline actually meant um like the rigorous nature of the field. Um, and how important it is to our understanding of like where we are today I feel like. 05:44.87 David Howe That's a great dancer. Actually yeah. 05:45.23 archpodnet Yeah, did did you just happen into an anthropology course archeology course or was that something you were looking for. 05:45.69 McKenna Litynski Thank you. 05:55.61 McKenna Litynski Yeah, so my as a kid you know everybody has different life goals. They're like I want to be a doctor I Want to be an astronaut I definitely went through all of those phases. Um. 06:04.76 David Howe 5 06:07.36 McKenna Litynski I had like 10 different jobs that I was like I'm going to be that I'm going to be the youngest real in the world I'm going to be psychologists. It was great. Um, but actually going into um college I was very interested in psychology. So I was taking psychology classes. Um, I started out taking classes online through Oregon State University actually and one of my professors mentioned oh anthropology kind of intertwines with psychology. Um, it's a study of humanity and I'm like what there's a discipline on the study of humanity like that's broad and I was like but that's cool because I like people. So I was like I'll try it so it was an intro to anthropology class and I loved it. Oh my gosh because I mean the reason why I wanted to go into psychology is because I liked people I just I love talking I am extroverted um, and so yeah, it was just very interesting that. There was a whole field that could study people in their culture and their biology and their language and then I happened to stumble across an intro to archeology class and that's kind of where I was very fascinated by that. Um, that being said I wasn't. Completely sold on archaeology after that class. In fact, I actually wanted to go into neuroanthropology going into when I transferred to st mary's college in Maryland so I wanted to study nature's effects on the brain. 07:41.20 McKenna Litynski So living in more forested mountainous landscapes compared with cityscapes and how that affects our brain chemistry are ways of thinking. Um, and so I knew that I wanted to get an anthropology degree but I wasn't completely sold on archeology per se. Um, that kind of led into my advisor at the time in my undergrad and he was like hey like you should take a field school because as part of your degree you have to do an internship of some sort and this counts as an internship keep in mind I was living in Maryland at the time Maryland is humid. It's hot. It's muddy sometimes and I was like oh like that sounds disgusting like me being outside all the time in the dirt in Maryland that sounds horrid it was I was I was dreading it bugs I'm a mosquito magnet. 08:28.20 David Howe Ah, yeah. 08:35.63 McKenna Litynski I can't even tell you how many mosquito bites I got that summer but that being said I found my first artifact in the ground and I think it was something super simple like a nail or a brick because I was escavating a historical archeology site and I was like oh my god like someone three hundred years ago was holding this artifact in their hand using it for some purpose and it was it kind of hit me in that moment that I really wanted to do this as a field of study. 08:57.70 David Howe Yeah, yeah. 09:04.78 David Howe Um, yeah, that I think that is a trying to segue into this without sounding dumb. The okay. 09:09.35 archpodnet I got it I had a similar experience doing that I think the actual physical recovering of an an artifact can really it like changed my brain chemistry after that and I became super excited about. Archeology and in the past and I I kind of had the inkling that was going to go into it but the actual field science part of it convinced me as well. Yeah. 09:35.14 McKenna Litynski Um, yeah, it's very convincing you just oh no, yeah um I am from the East Coast 09:36.27 David Howe Yeah, when you're from the East Coast right sorry it's cut you off. 09:48.64 McKenna Litynski It's kind of funny I did a like a mini circle around the East Coast in terms of where I lived so I was born in West Virginia um and I lived there for a couple of years and then we moved because I thought the pet smart was the zoo and my parents were like um we should inculturate this child. Ah. 10:07.69 McKenna Litynski And so we moved to Pittsburgh um, big city and then we moved to Annapolis. Um, I don't know we kind of got tired of the city environment. So then we moved to more rural Maryland and I lived there for quite some time. So. I think I spent most of my life in Maryland. 10:24.90 David Howe Okay, um, and segueing from that I remember you telling me, you were homeschooled right? I think you're the first that I know of that's that said so is there the first homeschooled archeology you've found in here. Do you think that influenced you into like what you're doing now like the way you like. 10:29.23 McKenna Litynski I was yes. 10:43.73 David Howe Learn to learn and things like that. 10:46.60 McKenna Litynski I Feel like it has um and it's mainly because my mom homeschooled me from Kindergarten all the way through high school. Um, and I think having the experience to constantly improve my love for learning because I have a constant love for learning. 11:01.75 David Howe Alright. 11:03.72 McKenna Litynski I Mean that's kind of why I'm going into the Ph D like if you don't like learning then you don't continue education. Um, and I feel like my mom was very helpful in that direction. Um like she kind of pushed me to pursue whatever I was interested in. Um so like in high school. 11:08.61 David Howe Right. 11:21.64 McKenna Litynski I was reading neuroscience books I was reading sports psychology books because that's what I was interested at the time so I could kind of tailor my education to my interests during that particular period in my life that being said like obviously we had to fulfill specific requirements. We had like portfolio reviews. Every year where we had to give our portfolios to an educator in a public school. They had to review our portfolios and they had to approve us so that we could move on to the next grade. So we had the requirements but we also had very flexible learning opportunities. 11:58.11 David Howe Yeah, because it's always struck me interesting like the way you're so ah I would say like yeah, you just really like learning and you're super intelligent like it's the way Public school is a kind of. Puts those fires out for a lot of people because they don't want to. They don't know stuff like this exists or they think they have to go to so college to be. You know an accountant or something dumb. They don't want to deal with math but like it's just yeah, you're you're excelling at what you're doing I think because of that because you had ah an environment which didn't stifle. You. 12:31.37 McKenna Litynski Yeah, thank you I Kind of feel like that too and I think something else that kind of helped me going into college actually was the ability to learn by myself and like figure out problems by myself I mean yes I had my mom's help but I also had a lot of self. 12:32.34 David Howe I guess. 12:45.33 David Howe Chair. 12:50.76 McKenna Litynski Problem solving situations in my homework and so I kind of sat down with that homework page and was like okay how do I figure this out and I feel like ultimately that helped me in college with like group projects in my own homework. Yeah, definitely um and then I feel like it also helps me in grad school too because. 13:03.56 David Howe Um, but especially through covid. Yeah. 13:10.55 McKenna Litynski I mean I'm dealing with this like crazy research question of whether or not people thirteen thousand years ago are eating these mice and I kind of had to sit down and be like well how am I going to test this yes I had the help of my advisor a lot of help but I also like had to deal with this question on my own and tackle. It. So. It was fun. 13:29.68 archpodnet Yeah I think I think for at least for grad school I mean it's It's super important for you to learn the skills yourself but and and have help and have guidance and stuff like that but actually learning those things I feel like what grad school is for learning to write learning to research. 13:30.73 David Howe Cool. Um. 13:49.80 archpodnet Learning to a bunch of trades etc. So I'm glad that you felt like you got that experience and can bring that into the next stage of your of your academic career. 13:58.82 McKenna Litynski Yeah, thanks. 14:00.49 David Howe Yeah, so you okay, so if I remember you telling me correctly this summer homeschooled and then you went to, you did the oregon online thing then you went to Maryland and you went to. Campus classes there and then from there. How did you get to Wyoming. 14:20.27 McKenna Litynski Yeah, so I was homeschooled up until I was 16 and I graduated high school at 16 and then I went to undergrad and I finished that in 2 years with double majors in a minor. Um, so I finished undergrad at 18 14:27.49 David Howe Um, wild. 14:37.61 McKenna Litynski And so I kind of had a crossroads at that point I kind of had to decide whether or not I was going to continue my education just go for grad school or go and gain some work experience and then come back to grad school because I was so Young. Um. And I kind of had that option. Um, so ultimately I decided to just go for grad school take the plunge because I was still really interested in Learning. Um and I feel like I also wanted to. Have the opportunity to learn new theoretical perspectives because in college it was all historical archeology based um and I knew that through classes in college I wanted to Pursue Zoareology So The study of animal means in archaeological context.. That being said I was getting tired of looking at Chickens pigs and cows and sheep on a consistent basis. Those 4 species. Um it was ah is very bland. Ah so. 15:42.30 David Howe It's morning. 15:48.11 McKenna Litynski I knew I I wanted to diversify my taxa like learn new osteeological markers understand different ways of differentiating species species on a wider scale. Um, to do that I needed to work in a place with really good funnel preservation. Back East That's not great. There is humidity and acidic soils that just destroys Boon. So from that I knew that I needed to look at Grad schools out West where the funnel preservation was better. 16:08.82 David Howe No, it's. 16:24.92 McKenna Litynski Um, so I applied to a couple different grad schools I got into all of them. But I ultimately chose wyoming for a number of reasons one I really aligned with the professor's research interests. Um, we really connected in a lot of different ways over Zoom meetings because it was at the height of covid which was interesting. Um I also found that in talking to some of the grad students at Wyoming. They were very supportive. They were like yeah this is a good environment. It was important for me to reach out. Because I am a female in academia wanted to make sure that the professors were actually telling the truth in terms of where they're at um, in regards to females in academia if you know what I mean um and I also I think what really sold me on Wyoming was that. The department was so collaborative. Um, and everybody was willing to uplift each other and help each other out in their projects whereas I feel like at a couple other grad schools I applied to um, that kind of wasn't the case. It was a more competitive environment and more cutthroat and. 17:29.33 David Howe Yeah. 17:34.38 McKenna Litynski That really wasn't what I was looking for. 17:37.96 David Howe Good. Um, obviously the 3 of us are biased. But I'd say you made a good choice. Um, yeah, right and I think that's the perfect. Yeah note connor do you want it. 17:41.23 McKenna Litynski Thanks, go Wyoming. 17:43.44 archpodnet Yeah, and on that on that note, we're gonna cowboy our way out of here. Get real bad. 17:52.81 David Howe Bad oh. 17:57.36 McKenna Litynski Ah.