Introducing PhD candidate, Kelly Kamnikar!
Fifth year student, Kelly Kamnikar, is currently finishing her dissertation here at Michigan State University. Her dissertation research aims to estimate ancestry for Hispanic individuals to even finer levels of resolution, specifically for southeastern Mexico and Guatemala. With cranial variation being influenced by the environment, history, culture, and genetics, these regions have a long history of indigenous occupation, colonization, unequal distribution of resources, and racism that could impact human variation. Looking at samples from Mérida, Mexico, and Guatemala, Kelly aims to see if meaningful patterns of cranial variation exist. This project, funded in part by the Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant through the MSU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, will expand on research specifically looking at the ancestry label, “Hispanic,” to see if variation can be refined and useful for identification efforts, specifically regarding the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Kelly became involved in forensic anthropology beginning in her undergraduate studies at the University of North Dakota (UND) while majoring in forensic science. At the time, this program was an amalgamation of different aspects of forensic courses with a heavy focus on biology and chemistry. While Kelly enjoyed these classes, it wasn’t until her sophomore year when she took an Introduction to Forensic Anthropology course taught by Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, when she felt passionate about where she wanted to focus her career. Dr. Stubblefield had her class read Dead Men Do Tell Tales by Dr. Maples and Kelly was able to assist Dr. Stubblefield on recoveries in the Grand Forks, North Dakota area. This spark pushed her to pursue the field in any way possible. During the summer of her senior year at UND, Kelly worked as a forensic anthropology intern at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta, reinforcing her desire to pursue this career.
Graduating from her undergraduate program in the middle of the 2008 recession, Kelly decided, due to the lack of jobs, to go to Spain to teach English (but mostly to travel and eat good food). She knew forensic anthropology was where her heart lay so she contacted Dr. Jose Luis Prieto, a forensic anthropologist in Madrid, and had the opportunity to volunteer analyzing skeletal remains from the Spanish Civil War. Assisting Dr. Prieto and colleagues, they worked for several hours in a small lab in the city of Ponferrada in Leon, drank coffee, and ate dinner at midnight, a bit of a schedule shift from her typical day in the States. At the time, Kelly was still working on becoming fluent in Spanish, but everyone there was wonderfully patient and helped her navigate the language and culture. After her time in Spain, Dr. Prieto recommended Kelly for a traineeship position with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland where she worked for over a year interacting with many brilliant people who helped her navigate the field, provided her with a plethora of opportunities, and whom she is thankful to stay in contact with and see at annual conferences each year.
Realizing her passion for teaching, research, and casework, Kelly began her graduate studies at Mississippi State with Dr. Nick Herrmann for a M.A. in Applied Anthropology with a focus on Bioarchaeology. Dr. Herrmann involved his students in all of the different projects he was working on, so Kelly was able to expand and develop many skills related to archaeology and biological anthropology. This included a lot of traveling throughout the state for forensic recoveries, skeletal excavations at the Mississippi State Asylum cemetery, and water sample collection. Dr. Herrmann’s approach to always include students in all of his research was an inspiration Kelly has taken to heart in her own mentorship at MSU and something she will take beyond her graduate studies.
In the summer of 2012, Kelly was able to intern at Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory (now the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) at Hickam Joint Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is where she met Dr. Joe Hefner. Dr. Hefner was great to work with at the lab and made sure that the interns were involved in different aspects of casework in the laboratory. When applying for doctoral programs, Kelly knew of Michigan State’s longstanding reputation as a renowned graduate program for forensic anthropology and hoping that Dr. Hefner would be taking students, she applied to work with him. Dr. Hefner’s collaborative research approach, desire to think beyond the classic methodology, and his dedication and respect for undergraduate, master, and doctoral students was a great draw for Kelly. She is thankful that he chose to work with her and of her time at MSU.
One of her favorite aspects of the field is the opportunity to travel to work with people on a global scale on research projects and casework. In 2017 and 2018, Kelly worked for the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) in Tbilisi, Georgia, helping to analyze skeletal remains of the missing from the recent conflict. She has also collected macromorphoscopic data with Dr. Hefner and colleague Amber Plemons in Thailand, Texas, and Tennessee, and has collected dissertation data in Arizona, Mexico, and Guatemala. The ability to travel has allowed her to build collaborative research projects to address global issues in forensic anthropology. She cannot wait until it is safe to travel again to continue these amazing partnerships!
With so many wonderful experiences, it is hard for her to choose what her most fulfilling experience in the field has been thus far, having learned so much from the various opportunities. One experience she will never forget was the time she volunteered with the Fundación de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala (FAFG). While at Mississippi State, she wanted more experience excavating human remains and working in the field, so she traveled with archaeologists from the FAFG to two remote villages in the Guatemalan highlands. This is what she had to say about this amazing work:
“To get to one place, we had to hike on foot for three hours. This particular village suffered during the conflict. Many children and adults had died and were buried by the community in a grassy area at the center of the town. We spent about a week there and ate with villagers every day. I think the interaction with the villagers and the kindness and openness they showed me, knowing I was an American, and the role America had in the death of their loved ones was incredible. I feel like we can sometimes forget about the living, or at least think of them peripherally, because they are not directly involved with casework. This experience blended forensic work and living families together; there was no separation. The families were standing over us, watching us from the side of the grave excavate and collect the bones of their family. One man even recognized the clothes his brother wore. This experience really reminded me that the living are the reason we do what we do, and how grateful I am to be able to do what I can for them.”
Between all of the traveling and dissertating, Kelly still has time to be a part of several ongoing research projects, apart from the multitude of research projects she has published thus far. She is working with colleagues in Guatemala on research exploring various aspects of human variation at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Forenses de Guatemala. She is also a research assistant for an NIJ grant, which she helped write with Amber Plemons, focusing on the investigation of subadult dental age-at-death estimation using transitional analysis and machine learning methods. She has mentored undergraduate researcher on this project, Carolyn Sauter, who has been awarded this year’s MSU Andrew Undergraduate Fellowship with direction and aid from Kelly. Kelly and her colleagues, Drs. Gonashvili, Hefner, & Herrmann, also just won a Humanitarian and Human Rights Resource Center grant to support the project “Anthropological Analysis of Victims of the Soviet-Era Terror in Georgia” where the team will collaborate to excavate and analyze skeletal remains in Batumi, Georgia.
Believe it or not, Kelly still has time to enjoy time outside of the field! Kelly likes to spend her time outside of casework doing CrossFit, which she feels keeps her sane when there is so much to do! Although it might already be obvious, she loves travelling and the challenge of exploring and navigating new places. Already fluent in Spanish, she loves learning the languages of the places she goes, eating local food specialties (especially any street food), and learning all she can from people about their culture. Recently having moved to Tucson, Arizona, to finish writing, she reflects on her favorite places in the Lansing area. Loving to eat, she most misses places centered around food including: Pineapple Prosciutto pizza at Zoobies, Emily’s Stoopid Breakfast Sandwich at Good Trucking Diner, and queso at Punk Taco. She really enjoyed spending the weekends working at Strange Matter coffee shop, and obviously eating a donut with her iced NOLA (a New Orleans cold brew steeped in chicory root, topped with simple syrup and milk).
When asked what advice she has for undergraduate students interested in biological anthropology, Kelly responded:
“This is a truly wonderful field, but it is filled with ups and downs, many of which are related to the job market and funding. I suggest speaking with people in the field about their experiences and immersing yourself in different opportunities as much as you can before you decide to go to graduate school. A PhD is an investment of your time, and you want to be sure you love what you are studying before experiencing those highs and lows. I advise you to nurture relationships with other graduate students. They are going to be your colleagues in the future, and a great cohort of people can make the lows much more bearable. Your cohort is also invaluable for collaborative research, proofreading, and lifting you up when things do not go your way.”
Authored by: Micayla Spiros
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