Dr. Allysha P Winburn

This study provides a proof-of-concept for incorporating evolutionary theory into forensic anthropology practice. Specifically, we test whether innominate measurements used in the DSP 2 sex-estimation method reflect known patterns of morphological integration and whether variable redundancy can be reduced without compromising classification accuracy.
Innominate measurements were obtained from published datasets totaling 3045 individuals. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify clusters of measurements. Relative standard deviation of eigenvalues was used to assess the degree of morphological integration. Posterior probabilities of sex classification were computed using one variable per cluster (cluster-based approach) and compared to a randomly selected four-variable approach, consistent with the minimum recommended by the original study. Simulations were used to generate posterior distributions of accuracy and the percentage of samples reaching a decision threshold.
Three distinct clusters of innominate measurements were identified, broadly corresponding to known modules of the innominate. The degree of morphological integration was higher within clusters than in the full measurement set or nonintegrated matrices. The cluster-based classification approach showed comparable accuracy (mean = 96.38%) to the randomized approach (mean = 95.64%) despite using only three variables. While fewer individuals were assigned a sex under the cluster-based method, the results demonstrated higher consistency.
Results suggest that accounting for morphological integration can streamline sex estimation by reducing variable redundancy without compromising accuracy. This study demonstrates how evolutionary principles can improve the theoretical foundation of forensic anthropology methods and offers a framework for future method development grounded in evolutionary theory.

Biological profile methodology, terminology, and reporting in forensic anthropology have developed under the understanding of sex as a binary, and the field has avoided gender in research and practice. Yet this current perspective does not adequately address challenges specific to the identification of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals where the results of a biological profile analysis of skeletal morphology may not properly reflect an individual's identity in life, thereby hindering identification efforts when the two conflict. The advancement of modern gender-affirming medical care for TGD individuals that may impact skeletal morphology and legal and social marginalization in both life and death further confound this issue. Here, we situate the role of the forensic anthropologist as an advocate for the deceased in promoting practices reflective of diverse gender identities and propose a path toward inclusive deathcare practices. Finally, we highlight TGD-inclusive casework practices that can be further developed by the incorporation of a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender into current methodology, the use of more diverse identity terminology, and the inclusion of TGD individuals in research development.

With a life that spanned nearly a century (b. 1894-d. 1978) and an artistic career that exceeded six decades, artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell was synonymous with the idyllic, late-twentieth-century, New-England-tinged brand of Americana that came to characterize the U.S. television crime drama Murder, She Wrote. While Rockwell's work during the 1960s delved into struggles related to the civil rights movement, his early work did not tackle deep-seated structural racial, economic, or sexual or gender inequities. Instead, the young Rockwell painted idealized portrayals of white Americana filled with nostalgia, humor, and hope. His earlier art reflected a cisgender, heteronormative, overwhelmingly white traditional idealism, and in re-presenting it (sensu Latour, 1987), reproduced and reified it within American culture. Perceived as lighthearted and optimistic, his earlier artwork served as a kind of beacon that even among the turmoil of world wars and economic depressions, all things would ultimately return to normal, and balance would ultimately be restored-albeit a balance tipped in favor of the status quo. This sense of balance, and the feelings of security and 'coziness' it produces, is echoed in Murder, She Wrote, which also depicts an idealized, whitewashed world in which disruptions-in this case, homicides and the processes that surround them (including processes of both investigation and grieving)-are resolved and the status quo restored.

Inequity and suffering are perpetuated and established by human societies, which can be embodied as health disparities. Social conditions, and the systems-level factors that structure them, play an outsize role in these health disparities (Table 1)[see image in poster.] Social and structural factors can also impact oral health. The U.S. has made progress in the integration of oral health into general strategies for health improvement—integrating oral health and primary health care, improving access to and quality of services, and creating patient-centered care teams (Northridge et al., 2020). However, the proximal behavioral causes of the oral inequalities have been overemphasized, rather than the more upstream causes of social gradients in oral diseases (Watt, 2012).

Older adults living in subsidized senior housing tend to be at risk for poor psychological well-being related to their advanced age and low income. This study aims to explore multilevel factors affecting perceived quality of life (QoL) among non-urban subsidized senior housing residents and to compare these factors between rural and suburban communities. Community/residential-level data were collected from the interviews with residential service coordinators (RSC) of five subsidized senior housing communities in the New England region: two rural and three suburban communities. Individual- and interpersonal-level data came from the survey with 82 residents. A mixed-methods approach was utilized. We used thematic content analyses for the interview data and multivariate ordered logit regression for the survey data. Our results showed that rural residence was positively associated with QoL (OR = 4.913, p<.01) even after controlling for all the individual-, interpersonal-, and community/residential-level factors. From RSCs’ perspectives, four main themes emerged, which could potentially contribute to better QoL among senior housing residents: access to services, social spaces for residents, inequitable connections to community resources, and social engagements among senior housing residents and with RSCs. Our findings contribute to the development of strategies to improve QoL among older adults living in rural/non-metropolitan subsidized senior housing.

Diverse bodies of theory inform forensic anthropology [1,2] in addition to the evolutionary frameworks or biological paradigms most often invoked [3]. Despite this theoretical depth, a vast array of anthropological theory remains to be fully examined by forensic anthropologists. This can be explained, in part, by the siloing not only of subdisciplines, but also of interest areas within a subdiscipline, leading some to view even closely aligned specialties such as forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology as theoretically isolated from one another [[4], [5], [6]]. Given the burgeoning conversations in the field on ethical practice, strengthening standards, expanding the scope of forensic work, relevance of forensic practice in relation to broader socio-cultural issues, and holistic approaches to forensic anthropology [[6], [7], [8], [9]], we need to embrace and incorporate anthropological theories that have the potential to inform or transform these issues. Among these discussions, several studies have underscored structural violence and structural vulnerability theories as they apply in forensic anthropology [[10], [11], [12], [13]]. Relatedly, social and structural determinants of health have emerged as lenses through which we can consider forensic anthropological practice [13]. This special issue resides at the intersection of these theories, wherein contributors were asked to broadly apply these frameworks to forensic anthropology.

Forensic anthropologists engage with numerous and diverse stakeholders in their casework. Regarding the recovery of human remains, these stakeholders may be interested in quantifying or qualifying the amount of remains recovered. How forensic anthropologists respond to such questions, whether verbally or in written reporting, has the potential to impact the trajectory of a case. However, communications about skeletal completeness are rarely discussed within the field. Current data-collection procedures recommend the use of inventories. This approach may be less feasible for complicated assemblages involving commingling or high degrees of fragmentation. Numerous methods exist to quantify the amount of skeletal remains present in complex or larger assemblages, but it remains unclear to what extent forensic anthropologists utilize these methods and whether factors like degree of expertise influence analysts' ability to report skeletal completeness consistently and precisely. A study was designed to examine differences between public and professional perceptions of skeletal completeness, presenting images of incomplete bones and skeletal remains. Survey participants were asked to assess the completeness of the remains in each image. Few patterns were observed regarding photographs of skeletal assemblages, but distinct differences were observed among individual bones between respondents with different degrees of expertise. These responses reflect potentially unexamined assumptions underlying assessments of incomplete bones and skeletal assemblages. This highlights the necessity of standardizing how we report estimates of completeness within the forensic anthropology community and how we discuss these results with external stakeholders. Completeness estimates must be either removed from reports and bench notes or annotated and cited clearly, as is standard with other aspects of forensic anthropological analysis. Several methods are summarized, with recommendations for integrating them into casework.

Scholarship of forensic sciences has shown politicalization of human remains and potential biases in criminal investigations. Specifically, concerns have been raised regarding how forensic anthropology analysis and documentation may hinder identification processes or obfuscate other data. As part of this scholarship, some have suggested that forensic anthropologists expand their reporting to include broader public health and safety information as well as reconsider who should be included in reports of anthropological findings. In response to these burgeoning discussions, this piece provides examples of ways anthropologists may formulate reports that capture evidence of marginalization or structural vulnerability. Documentation of findings can occur in myriad formats, including, but not limited to, individual case reports, reports on population analyses from cases, collaborative end-of-year reporting conducted with other medicolegal professionals, and collaborative databasing. This piece provides various templates and suggestions for reporting this kind of data while encouraging further discussion on related merits and concerns.

Forensic anthropology has recently and publicly grappled with fundamental disciplinary issues-including estimating population affinity, the pursuit of objectivity, and the role of bias in medicolegal contexts-all of which has left the subdiscipline in a state of seeming fracture, with many practitioners worried about its future. Given these concerns, we wondered to what degree polarization exists, if at all, and along what lines. Using the method of cultural consensus analysis, we asked forensic anthropologists: What makes a "good" forensic anthropologist? Our findings suggest that contrary to widespread concern, broad agreement (consensus) exists over the training, experiences, perspectives, and practices forensic anthropologists (n = 103) identified as important for being "good" at what they do. A few points of disagreement emerged-particularly over the issue of neutrality-which dominated the narrative feedback we received. The fault lines of this debate primarily fell along generational lines, with those having earned their degrees earlier believing more strongly in neutrality. This pattern largely maps onto broader (and somewhat routine) disciplinary debates and trends away from positivism, with younger anthropologists more focused on the larger goal of "decolonizing US anthropology" and attending to the antiracist work that figures prominently in anthropology today.