We are pleased to announce that Dr. Hefner has received a grant in the amount of $423,959 from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to fund the project A Macromorphoscopic Databank: Establishing the Statistical Analysis of Macromorphoscopic Data in Forensic Anthropology. The two-year research project will address a methodological gap in forensic anthropology by providing reference data and establishing analytical methods to accurately and objectively assess ancestry. Dr. Hefner will be gathering data on macromorphoscopic traits (slight variation in cranial form) in order to correlate patterns in the frequency distribution of traits to forensically-significant populations. His goal is to establish a large, geographically-diverse reference database and then develop a computer program utilizing standard and novel statistical classification methods so that practitioners can assess ancestry from macromorphoscopic traits.
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.