Forensic anthropology is the applied form of biological anthropology that serves the medical and legal communities. Many students have seen TV shows like Bones, the CSI series, and even The X-Files, get interested in forensic anthropology, but many are not aware that we have a very strong program in Forensic Anthropology here at UNL. We start out with foundational courses in Human Osteology (the study of bones) and the study of animal bones (archaeofauna) and then proceed to teach students the process of creating an identification: what was their biological sex? What was their ancestry? How tall was this person? All these questions help us identify individuals and give their name back to them.
Our national partners with the US Department of Defense’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s (DPAA) forensic laboratory at Offutt AFB give our students opportunities to work with our Nation’s mission of recovering and identifying missing US service members who are missing in our nation’s conflicts. Also, we are partnered with the National Forensic Science University in Gujarat, India for student and faculty exchanges as well as research opportunities.
We are currently planning a month-long field school to a US bomber crash site outside of Muenster, Germany for the summer of 2022. This field school will support our partnership with DPAA and recover the remains of missing U.S. military servicemembers from World War II.
More details at: https://sgis.unl.edu/undergraduate#anthropology