Melissa Darroch is an M.A. student in historical archaeology with a focus on bioarchaeology. She holds a B.S. in anthropology (2016) from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and an M.A. in museum studies (2021) from Syracuse University.

Her thesis focuses on a turn of the 20th century quarantine cemetery located on Gallops Island, Boston, Massachusetts. Concerns of smallpox and other contagious diseases resulted in public health regulations that isolated symptomatic people entering the Boston port by removing them to Boston’s quarantine hospital on Gallops Island.

Through a combination of bioarchaeological remains and archival research, her thesis research investigates insights into concerns about immigration and public health at a time when globalization sent an array of products and people on the move.