Meet Grayson and Grace—two of our outstanding summer interns at the Ohio History Connection! They have quite a bit in common: both attend Ohio University, have taken at least one class together, share an interest in wildlife forensics, and were each independently selected from a competitive pool of applicants for this internship. Despite all those overlaps, they didn’t actually meet until their first day here!

Grayson Alonso will be entering her senior year this fall, majoring in Wildlife and Conservation Biology with a certificate in Forensic Sciences. Grace Vance is also a rising senior, majoring in Marine and Freshwater Biology and pursuing the same certificate.

With the museum’s large multi-year project of packing, moving, and unpacking our collections at the new Collections Care Center (CCC), specimen preparation for the natural history collection had been temporarily paused. Thanks to Grace and Grayson, we’re finally making progress on the backlog of frozen specimens.

Because of their academic focus on vertebrate osteology and wildlife forensics, they’re spending the summer preparing bird and mammal skeletons. All the animals were collected after accidental deaths—such as roadkill, cat predation, or window collisions.

Turning a carcass into a clean, scientifically valuable specimen—or even an exhibit-ready skeleton—is no easy task. But Grace and Grayson have jumped right in. They're using our dermestid beetle colony (yes, the flesh-eating kind!) to clean the bones. This work requires patience, knowledge, and a strong nose - and they’ve proven to be more than up for the challenge. Not only are they contributing to the museum’s efforts, they’re also gaining real-world, hands-on experience in their field of study.

Want to learn more about our flesh-eating beetle colony and how they help museums? Stay tuned! Our next fall blog post will take you behind the scenes with dermestid beetles.