Tribal History Meets Modern Tech

BOBBY ALBAN ’25, an aerospace engineering major and technical coordinator for Terrapin Works, removes 3D-printed peace medals from an advanced metal printer in the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building in November. The Piscataway Tribe, upon whose ancestral lands the University of Maryland sits, collaborated with the 3D printing and rapid prototyping service in the A. James Clark School of Engineering to create replicas of three medals, which were originally given to American Indian tribes by English colonists and later found stowed in museum storage. The models “become a physical reminder that people can come see and touch to be able to understand this aspect of not only colonial Maryland history or colonial Pennsylvania history, but also early American history,” says Mario Harley, a Piscataway tribal member and historian.