Dr. Maggie Furtner
Maggie first experienced caves on an overnight trip to Mammoth Cave in fifth grade. While she always fondly remembered the trip, almost two decades passed before she encountered them again studying paleoanthropology in graduate school. Paleoanthropology is the study of human evolution. One of the main ways that scientists learn about our evolutionary past is through fossils, both those of our human ancestors, the hominins, and those of the animals that lived alongside them in past environments. Southern Africa is one of the major centers of exploration in paleoanthropology, and many of the fossils discovered there are found preserved in caves!
For her PhD dissertation, Maggie built machine learning models to predict caves and sinkholes in a karst landscape known as the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, where many fossil discoveries have been made. These models analyzed remote satellite imagery and identified areas with a high probability of karst development. She then traveled to South Africa to see whether she could find caves and sinkholes based on their predictions. The models were successful, and she found almost 70 caves and sinkholes when guided by the models! Models like this can help make it easier to locate areas of interest when searching for fossils.
In her current position at NCKRI, Maggie plans to apply similar methods to create karst development models and vulnerability maps to help resource management teams make decisions regarding karst stewardship. She is a novice caver but is excited to dive in and learn the ropes, as well as to expand the geospatial, GIS, and machine learning toolkits at NCKRI. As a trained anthropologist, she hopes to provide a unique perspective on human-environment interactions in caves and karst, drawing on the intersections between culture, history, and conservation.
Beyond NCKRI, Maggie enjoys pursuing research and fieldwork that combines paleontological, geographic, and computer science methods. She has spent several field seasons in the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming, serving as a geospatial specialist and collecting 50-million-year-old mammal fossils. During her academic career, she has received an NSF grant and a Leakey Foundation grant, and has presented her work numerous times at national conferences.
Education
Ph.D., Anthropology, Louisiana State University 2025
Graduate Certificate, Geographic Information Systems, Louisiana State University 2022
Masters of Arts, Anthropology, Louisiana State University 2020
Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, DePauw University 2017
Selected Recent Publications
Furtner MJ, Anemone RL, Wang L, Brophy JK (In review). Evaluating Random Forest model performance for cave and sinkhole prediction in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa: Preliminary analysis and variable importance assessments. Journal of Archaeological Method
and Theory.
Furtner MJ, Brophy JK (2023). Preliminary comparison of close-range photogrammetric and microCT scanning: Surface Deviation Analysis of 3D digital models of hominin molar crowns. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 47, 103762.
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To see Maggie’s complete publication record, visit her Google Scholar profile.