Category: News
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Student Spotlight: Micayla Spiros
As we say goodbye to 2020 and hello to 2021, we would like to highlight one of our lab members here at the MSUFAL: Micayla Spiros! Micayla is currently a third year doctoral student and is also our current MSUFAL Laboratory Manager. She has been instrumental to transitioning our casework to an online platform during…
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Recognizing the Positives from a Difficult Semester
Happy New Year from all of us at the Michigan State University Forensic Anthropology Lab. While we look toward 2021 with hope that it will be brighter, we are taking a moment to reflect on our successes and progress during the Fall 2020 semester. As a lab, we recognize our work from every semester to…
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Ancestry Estimation Reflection
Introduction In this blog post, we hope to bring public awareness and engagement to a current debate in the field of forensic anthropology— the use of ancestry estimation. The biological profile is a list of identifying, demographic parameters estimated from the skeleton by forensic anthropologists. Ancestry is one of its most contemplated aspects. Along with…
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Dr. Angela Soler
We are very excited to feature our next MSUFAL alumna, Dr. Angela Soler, D-ABFA! Dr. Angela Soler is a board certified Forensic Anthropologist with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) working in the Forensic Anthropology Unit (FAU). Working within a medical examiner’s office, Dr. Soler says that her experience and education…
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New MSUFAL Lab Director, Dr. Carolyn Isaac
The MSU Forensic Anthropology Laboratory is pleased to announce Dr. Carolyn Isaac as our new Lab Director. An alumna of the MSUFAL, Dr. Isaac returned last fall as one of our three forensic anthropologists and has been a cornerstone of the team since Day 1. Dr. Isaac’s interest in the field can be traced back…
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Looking Ahead with 20/20 Hindsight
Happy fall from the MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab! I am Dr. Carolyn Isaac, one of the three faculty forensic anthropologists and the director of MSUFAL. I am so happy to be getting back into the swing of things after bringing a tiny human into the world in May and being home with her and, thanks…
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Is MSUFAL working remotely or remotely working?
As we embark into uncharted territory due to COVID-19, the MSUFAL has made a few adjustments to our daily operations. Labs, faculty, and graduate students around the world are dealing with a lot of changes and uncertainty right now. So, we thought we would focus this week’s blog on how our lab is handling these…
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MSUFAL on the road: American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting Recap
The MSUFAL team recently traveled to the annual American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting. The conference was held from February 17th to the 22nd in Anaheim, California and welcomes professionals and students from many areas of forensic sciences (e.g. Anthropology, Criminal Justice, and Toxicology). Attending this conference every year is important for sharing our current…
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What’s new at MSU?
The MSUFAL started 2020 with a bang! Publications, casework, outreach events: it has been busy here in the lab. Dr. Hefner co-authored a new publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology with Matthew Go (University of Illinois). Their research, “Morphoscopic ancestry estimates in Filipino crania using probit regression models” uses a novel approach to…
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A Semester in Review
Happy New Year from the Michigan State Forensic Anthropology Lab! The end of 2019 has brought with it the end of the fall semester at the MSUFAL. Because this past fall has flown by, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we have accomplished (instead of dwelling on all of those impending…