Sillustani is a pre-Incan burial ground on the shores of Lake Umayo, about an hour’s drive from Puno in Peru, which is a large city on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The tombs, which are built above ground in tower-like structures called chullpa, are the vestiges of the Colla people, Aymara speaking people who were conquered by the Inca in the 15th century.
Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sarah Kennedy, Sophie Baggett ’23, Claire Boyle ’25, Collin Kelso ’25, Ezra Kucur ’25 and Kalju Maegi ’23 spent a month in Puno, Peru studying heavy metal poisoning in soil and interacting with the community affected by it.