Bonobos are Friends Not Food

Deborah Porter, an brilliant Anthropology Major, has been my friend for many years, and she is now working on a passion project to educate the public about bonobos, the dangers of bushmeat, and the exotic animal trade.

I will be discussing the ecological impacts associated with overexploitation of primates on her website in the coming days.

Check out her work!

Here is Deborah exploring the rock formations in the American Desert. (Photo Credit: Angie Tucker)

(Photo Credit: Angie Tucker)

Get to know Deborah

Deborah is a nontraditional student majoring in Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. (Go Vols!) In her studies, she has become an expert at studying complex social structures and civilizations. However, I knew Deborah long before she became a modern day Indiana Jones.

We both got started at Roane State Community College and had some similar classes, Philosophy and General Biology, but we really didn't get to know each other until we both joined the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society (PTK). Here, we were at home, surrounded by fellow students who had a desire to learn and give back to the community. That spark of ambition landed us in officer positions: I was the Secretary and she was the Vice President of Scholarship. As the Vice President of Scholarship, Deborah was in charge of our chapter's Honor's In Action Project- where we research a particular topic within a theme and then propose an action plan to address the topic in the real world.

Deborah took the bull by the horns with this by doing extensive study into altruism, selfless acts. From her research, she found that local charities had been struggling to receive enough donations, and she decided that we could help them and educate the public about how altruistic acts have positive benefits on all parties. She worked with various faculty at Roane State to write a grant proposal and won one of five $1,000 grants to aid in our project. Deborah brought all her research to the other officers and chapter members, and we decided to make a website that would allow people to donate money to local charities and have a chance at winning a prize (to simulate the mechanisms of altruism). The website was a great success raising over $5,000 for local charities such as Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, Second Harvest Food Bank, and the McNabb Center.

(Photo Credit: Angie Tucker)

Deborah, center, posing with me, far left, and Claudia Cummings, far right, after redecorating the PTK board at a Roane State Campus. (Photo Credit: Angie Tucker).

The following year, she was elected to the officer position of President. In this position, she oversaw the completion of another successful Honors in Action Project, this time run by Kayla Koper. Kayla and Deborah worked hard to research Neurodiversity- the acceptance of diversity of mental cognition, including but not limited to Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and developmental speech disorders. This project was largely successful as we were able to educate the public and provide resources to neurodiverse individuals across East Tennessee.

Now that Deborah has graduated from Roane State, she has adopted a similar role to me as a mentor figure for the PTK chapter. Similarly, she also works at the Learning Center with me, where she helps students with writing, history, biology, and all humanities and social science courses.

In sum, Deborah is an all around amazing human being who wants to share her love of anthropology and primates with the world.

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