BU Forensic Anthropology

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BU Forensic Anthropology This program at Boston University School of Medicine is designed to teach students about biological anthropological theory and methods.

Last week, half of the first years had fingerprinting lab in Crime Scene class!☝🏼🫆They learned about latent prints and p...
10/01/2026

Last week, half of the first years had fingerprinting lab in Crime Scene class!☝🏼🫆They learned about latent prints and photography, and students were able to lift the prints off of a bottle!🍾

Keep up the good work!

Meet our current students pt. 9! 🩻🦴📐Check out our next student spotlight: Kirsten! Kirsten is a second year student work...
09/28/2026

Meet our current students pt. 9! 🩻🦴📐

Check out our next student spotlight: Kirsten!
Kirsten is a second year student working on her thesis titled “Assessing the Effect of Degree Measurement Variation Between Antemortem and Postmortem Radiograph Angles on Bone Identifiability.” Her thesis examines whether professionals in the field of forensic anthropology, or related disciplines, can identify the same individual by comparing radiographic images taken at different increment degrees of five. She wants to address questions including: “How often radiographs are used to identify an individual? At what angle a long bone or cranium becomes unidentifiable when compared to the original radiograph? Which bone is most challenging to identify across different angles? And what strategies can improve radiographic reading skills and at what educational level they should be taught?”

First week of school! 📚✏️📓Our new students got to meet each other at orientation Monday and our 2nd years gave them camp...
09/04/2026

First week of school! 📚✏️📓

Our new students got to meet each other at orientation Monday and our 2nd years gave them campus tours. The two cohorts also had a mid-week picnic on the first day of classes to get to know each other!

Stay tuned to see what else our students do this semester!

Last week during our Advanced Crime Scene class, the MA State Police Drone Unit gave a lecture and demonstration on the ...
08/27/2026

Last week during our Advanced Crime Scene class, the MA State Police Drone Unit gave a lecture and demonstration on the use of drones in law enforcement and public safety (mapping, large event security, search and rescue).

Speaking to the group are Lt. Brian Mahoney and Sergeant John Cronin.

Keep checking back to see what our students are up to this semester!

Meet our current students pt. 7! 🪶🐚🛥️Our next student spotlight is Rebecca! Rebecca is one of our second years working o...
08/25/2026

Meet our current students pt. 7! 🪶🐚🛥️

Our next student spotlight is Rebecca! Rebecca is one of our second years working on her thesis project “Gull scavenging of pig carcasses on Appledore Island, Maine.” The goal is to examine decomposition rates and the effect of scavengers in a New England environment, specifically a coastal one with seagulls.

Stay tuned for next week's spotlight!

Meet our current students pt.6! 🐕🐾🦴Meet Aedan. Aedan is a second year student in the Forensic Anthropology program curre...
08/17/2026

Meet our current students pt.6! 🐕🐾🦴

Meet Aedan. Aedan is a second year student in the Forensic Anthropology program currently working on her thesis titled "Bone Dispersal by Canids in New England Environment." Aedan is conducting one of a kind research, one of the first to explore bone dispersal patterns by coyotes. Something interesting Aedan has noticed thus far: "Coyotes like to tear up brightly colored silicone like rowdy dogs tear up toys."

Stay tuned for the next spotlight!

Meet our current students pt. 4! 📚💻🐾This week’s student spotlight is Madison! Madison is a second year student working o...
08/08/2026

Meet our current students pt. 4! 📚💻🐾

This week’s student spotlight is Madison! Madison is a second year student working on her thesis titled “Correlation between frontal sinus dimensions, facial traits, and cranial length.” She has been using 3D Slicer to create models of the frontal sinuses from CT scans from the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID). She is then comparing their dimensions to the maximum cranial length measurement and assigned scores for the glabella and supraorbital margin in order to examine if the frontal sinus is linked to cranial morphology.

Stay tuned for the next student spotlight!


Captain L’Italien is enjoying the summer with his granddaughter ‘Hazel’. He’s looking forward to the Advanced Crime Scen...
07/29/2026

Captain L’Italien is enjoying the summer with his granddaughter ‘Hazel’. He’s looking forward to the Advanced Crime Scene class which begins on Monday, August 10th. 🫆✨

Are you looking forward to the start of the semester?

Time to meet our current students pt.2!🕵️‍♀️🦒📝Yuri is currently a second year student at BU in the forensic anthropology...
07/27/2026

Time to meet our current students pt.2!🕵️‍♀️🦒📝

Yuri is currently a second year student at BU in the forensic anthropology program. Her thesis is titled "Pelvic Nonmetric S*x Estimation in Japanese Individuals." The goal of her project is that: "I'm trying to see whether the nonmetric s*x estimation methods on the pelves proposed by Phenice (1969), Klales et al. (2012) and Walker (2005) produce a high accuracy for Japanese individuals so that these methods could potentially be used in cases in Japan."

Stay tuned for our next student spotlight!!

Meet our current students pt. 3! 👩‍💻📖✈️Our next student spotlight is second year Sarah! Sarah’s thesis is titled “Skelet...
07/27/2026

Meet our current students pt. 3! 👩‍💻📖✈️

Our next student spotlight is second year Sarah! Sarah’s thesis is titled “Skeletal Analysis of Individuals from a Nobles’ Crypt in the Franciscan Convent of Chelva, Spain.” The goal of the project is to create biological profiles (estimating s*x, age-at-death, pathology, and more based on skeletal remains) for individuals interred within two crypts inside the church of the Franciscan Convent of Chelva, Spain, to confirm their identities as nobles in light of primary source documentation from the 17th-century indicating them as such.

Stay tuned for the next student spotlight coming up next week!

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