Spring has sprung and another semester is done here at MSU! The end of this semester marks our first academic year in Giltner Hall and we are loving the new space. This past winter was a whirlwind of activity at the MSUFAL with plenty of research, publications, and graduatuations! We would like to share just some of the wonderful things happening here in the lab.
*For all accepted and published publications referenced in this blog, please see the list at the end of the post.
Our amazing lab director, Dr. Carolyn Isaac, had quite the busy semester of teaching and research. She taught ANP 441: Osteology and Forensic Anthropology while continuing to work towards the development of an automated medical radiography matching system for scientific identification. This project, funded through the Consortium for the Integrated Forensic Applications, Collaborations, and Technology Systems (IFACTS) grant, is a collaboration between Drs. Todd Fenton and Joseph Hefner, and MSU Computer Scientist, Dr. Arun Ross. As a part of this project, Dr. Isaac mentored a team of amazing undergraduate students, including Hannah Bechinski, Maria Gishan, Mariah Larr, Mikayla Calverley, and Rachel Dolce who assisted in the preparation of radiographs for image segmentation and machine learning modeling. Dr. Isaac also continued her research on the histomorphology of cranial fractures with MSU alumnus Dr. Jered Cornelison publishing in the International Journal of Legal Medicine (IJLM) on the Repository of Antemortem Injury Response (repair.orainc.com), an online database of known-age cranial fractures and photomicrographs. They also published a technical note in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS) on the impacts of decalcification agents on decalcification time and the resulting quality of cranial fracture histology slides.
This semester, Dr. Joseph Hefner continued his research as a co-principal investigator with Dr. Nick Herrmann (Texas State University) on the NIJ-funded research titled, “Investigation of subadult dental age-at-death estimation using transition analysis and machine learning methods.” He also began his work as a co-principal investigator with Dr. Melissa Clarkson (University of Kentucky) on a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to develop standard visual libraries for craniofacial anatomy. Dr. Hefner co-authored a case report on cognitive bias in forensic anthropology with MSU graduate student Alex Goots in Forensic Anthropology and an article with MSU student Kelly Kamnikar on craniometric variation in Medellín, Colombia (published in both English and Spanish). He also had a full plate of courses this semester, including ANP 892: Advanced Quantitative Methods and ISS 220: Time, Space and Change in Human Society. The biggest accomplishment of the semester for Dr. Hefner was the graduation of his first two students, Dr. Amber Plemons and Dr. Kelly Kamnikar!
It was a whirlwind of a semester for Amber Plemons, who was a sixth-year graduate student, serving as the teaching assistant and lab instructor for ANP 441: Osteology and Forensic Anthropology and she returned as a Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) fellow. Amber co-authored a manuscript on the CAP program during the Covid-19 pandemic in the SAA Archaeological Record, published an article in Science & Justice a special issue onThe Future of Teaching, Training and Learning in Forensic and Crime Sciences with co-authors Micayla Spiros and Jack Biggs title “Pedagogical Access and Ethical Considerations in Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology”. She taught Introduction to Evolution and Archaeology at Oakland University and did all of this while working on her own dissertation research and writing. Last, but certainly not least, Amber successfully defended her dissertation titled, “The Interaction Between Genetics and Climate on Craniofacial Variation: Examining the Causative Forces of Macromorphoscopic Trait Expression”! Her study indicates cranial macromorphoscopic (MMS) traits can serve as genetic proxies for biodistance analysis due to a high correlation between phenotypic MMS expression and genetics. This fall, Amber will begin at the University of Kentucky as a University Research Postdoctoral Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences continuing her research on the roles of climate and genetics on human skeletal variation under the mentorship of Drs. Hugo Reyes-Centeno and James Hartsfield. While we are sad Amber will be leaving the MSUFAL, we are excited for her next phase as a biological and forensic anthropologist. Congratulations, Dr. Plemons!
Kelly Kamnikar began this semester as a Ph.D. candidate and ended it as a doctor of philosophy in biological anthropology! She was hard at work over the past few months completing her dissertation titled, “Cranial metric and nonmetric variation in Southeast Mexico and Guatemala: Implications for population affinity assessment in the United States” which she successfully defended earlier this May. Congratulations, Dr. Kamnikar! If a whole dissertation wasn’t enough, Kelly continued to collaborate on the 2022 Humanitarian and Human Rights Resource Center grant for “The Georgian Recovery, Documentation, Identification Project (GRDIP): Anthropological Analysis of Victims of the 1937-1938 Soviet Repressions in Adjara” with Dr. Meri Gonashvili and the Georgian Association of Forensic Anthropology (GAFA). She also worked as a graduate researcher Drs. Hefner & Herrmann’s NIJ-funded project, “Investigation of subadult dental age-at-death estimation using transition analysis and machine learning methods”. She also published as the first author on a manuscript in both English and Spanish in Forensic Anthropology on craniometric variation in Medellín, Colombia.
This semester, doctoral candidate Alex Goots was kept busy teaching ANP 206: Introduction to Physical Anthropology at MSU on top of writing her dissertation. Alex published with co-authors Dr. Joseph Hefner and Dr. David Start in Forensic Anthropology on cognitive bias in anthropological casework and she gave a podium presentation at the 2022 annual meeting of the Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) in Seattle, WA on identifying transgender individuals in the forensic record. Alex also tried out the sport of curling this semester and is happy to report that it is surprisingly fun. In exciting news, Alex will be starting as a forensic anthropologist at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Omaha, Nebraska this June to work towards identifying U.S. service members from past conflicts. We will miss her immensely at the MSUFAL but look forward to seeing her flourish as an anthropologist!
This was a big semester for Elena Watson, who passed her comprehensive exams to officially become ABD and a doctoral candidate! On top of the immense amount of work which went into preparing bibliographies and studying for her exams, Elena has been enjoying her role as a teaching assistant in the Division of Human Anatomy which she will continue into the summer semester.
At the beginning of the semester, Micayla Spiros defended her dissertation proposal titled “Biocultural Dynamics of Postcranial Skeletal Variation: An Investigation of Ontogeny, Socioeconomic Status, and Population History”. She also completed her annotated bibliographies, and subsequently passed her comprehensive exams to become ABD! Go Micayla! In addition to becoming a Ph.D. candidate, Micayla continued to work with Dr. Ethan Watrall as the Anthropology department online course coordinator. She developed a new online summer course, ANP 441: Osteology and Forensic Anthropology while coordinating and maintaining an additional 12 online courses. Micayla returned as a Cultural Heritage Informatics Senior Fellow and developed a website with an interactive map of graduate programs in forensic anthropology, data trends related to the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, and an interactive timeline highlighting major historical and contemporary developments in forensic anthropology in the U.S. (http://forensicanthropologyhistory.com/). She encourages individuals to visit the website to add suggestions for a more diverse, inclusive timeline of influential forensic anthropologists and events in our field not currently reflected in the literature. She also presented at the 2022 AAFS annual meeting, “Pedagogical Access and Ethical Considerations in Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology ” which she subsequently published as the first author with co-authors Amber Plemons and Jack Biggs in Science & Justice. Micayla has continued as the social media manager for the MSUFAL (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), the Georgian Association of Forensic Anthropology (Website, Twitter and Facebook), and the Forensic Anthropology journal (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram).
Third year Ph.D. student, Rhian Dunn, continued in the position of lab manager, taking the lead on casework and the development of new lab protocols as we settled into our new home that is Giltner Hall. Rhian was also a returning CAP fellow and created a Twine educational tool documenting previous archaeological excavations across the MSU campus (https://campusarch.msu.edu/?page_id=6601). She participated in the Digital Fellows Program which helps graduate students and faculty across MSU develop and define their digital presence through the creation of a personal or project website. Rhian continued as the co-President for the Graduate Students in Anthropology (GSA). On top of all these amazing activities, Rhian presented a poster at AAFS, attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA), was awarded the MSU College of Social Science (CSS) Early Start Award, and the Digital Humanities Professional Development Grant to create a photogrammetry station in our lab. Rhian published with her fellow CAP scholars in the SAA Archaeological Record and co-authored a biographical article for Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat with Andrea Zurek-Ost, Paige Lynch, and Carrie Bohne Warren. She also tried MSU Dairy Store ice cream for the first (and certainly not last) time!
Clara Devota wrapped up her first year in the Ph.D. program. Between coursework in biocultural theory and multivariate statistics in R programming, Clara continued her role as a research assistant for Dr. Carolyn Isaac, working to complete publications for Dr. Isaac’s previous NIJ-funded research on the histomorphology of cranial fractures, two of which were published in JFS and IJLM. Clara was awarded the CSS Early Start award to fund bioarchaeological research under the direction of Dr. Todd Fenton and in collaboration with the Interconnected Mobility of People and Economy Along the River Ombrone (IMPERO) archaeological project in Tuscany. She also participated in the Digital Fellows Program and the two-day College Teaching Institute hosted by the MSU Graduate School in pursuit of a certificate in College Teaching.
MSUFAL Publications
2022 Armelli K, Christensen E, Isaac C, Cornelison J. Steam Kettle Skeletal Preparation: An Efficient Method for Processing Human Remains. Forensic Anthropology. 5(1):73–77. https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2021.0016
2022 Cornelison JB, Isaac CV, Devota CJ, Billian J, Brown TB, deJong JL, Douglas EA, Fisher- Hubbard AO, Lackey-Cornelison WL, Prahlow JA, Shattuck BL. A Comparison of Three Decalcification Agents for Assessments of Cranial Fracture Histomorphology. Journal of Forensic Sciences. 67(3):1157-1166. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14990
Early View Dunn RR, Zurek-Ost A, Lynch P, Bohne Warren C. Dennis C. Dirkmaat: A brief visit with an influential forensic anthropologist. Forensic Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2021.0030
2022 Isaac CV, Cornelison JB, Prahlow JA, Devota CJ, Christensen ER. The Repository of Antemortem Injury Response (REPAIR): An Online Database for Skeletal Injuries of Known Ages. International Journal of Legal Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02756-z
2022 Biggs JA, Burnett JJ, Dunn RR, Milton EBP, Plemons AM. Campus archaeology program at Michigan State University: Reevaluating our program during a pandemic. SAA Archaeological Record. 22(2):17-21. https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=16146&i=740794&p=18&ver=html5
Early View Goots A, Hefner JT, Start D. Cognitive Bias in Forensic Anthropology: Michigan’s Craigslist Killer Case. Forensic Anthropology. March. https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2021.0032
2022 Kamnikar KR, Hefner JT, Monsalve T, Bernal Flores L. Craniometric variation in a regional sample from Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia: Implications for forensic work in the Americas. Forensic Anthropology. 5(3):199–210. https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2020.2023
2022 Kamnikar KR, Hefner JT, Monsalve T, Bernal Flores L. “Variación Craneométrica En Una Muestra Regional De Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia: Consecuencias Para El Trabajo Forense En Las Américas”. Forensic Anthropology. 5(3):S199–S210. https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2020.2023b
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