Rate My Professor Marlene Black

Marlene Black serves as the Anatomy Museum Technician with specialization in plastination in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago in Dunedin. In this capacity, she prepares plastinated specimens crucial for anatomy teaching and research activities. Plastination involves replacing tissue fluids with curable polymers to produce durable, anatomically accurate models that facilitate detailed examination without decay or odor. She also functions as a prosector, handling specimen preparation for dissection-based education.

Marlene Black has publicly demonstrated her skills, including presenting a selection of E12 sheet plastinates—a technique revealing fine tissue relationships—at a departmental event honoring a national teaching award in October 2018. In June 2018, she joined Dr. Yusuf Cakmak at TEXpo to showcase plastination technology. In May 2019, she conducted an investigation into the department's plastinated collection, identifying what may be its oldest specimen. Her technical proficiency has supported extensive anatomical research, earning acknowledgements in peer-reviewed publications such as 'Visualisation of facet joint recesses of the cadaveric spine' (2018), 'Denonvilliers' fascia in men: a sheet plastination and confocal microscopy study' (2017), 'Fibrous configuration of the fascia iliaca compartment' (2020), 'Mechanical Properties of Human Dura Mater in Tension' (2019), 'Quantification of fat in the posterior sacroiliac joint region' (2019), 'An epoxy sheet plastination study' in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine (2020), 'On the morphological relations of the Achilles tendon and plantar fascia via the calcaneus: a cadaveric study' (2021), and 'Fat Is Consistently Present within the Plantar Muscular Space of the Human Foot: An Anatomical Study' (2022). She has similarly assisted PhD theses including 'Development of a Novel Xenograft Material from New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussel' (2017), 'The obscure joint' (2021), and 'Clinical Anatomy of Upper Carotid Sheath' (2022). Marlene Black's work underpins anatomical scholarship at the University of Otago.