Target Audience

Des Moines University faculty, staff, and students.

Objectives

• Define the primary roles of a forensic anthropologist.
• Compare the role of a practicing forensic anthropologist to media representations of the profession (i.e., CSI-effect).
• Explain how a forensic anthropological analysis can supplement forensic pathologist/medical examiner postmortem evaluations.
• Describe how human skeletal anatomy can assist in the identification of an unknown decedent and circumstances surrounding their death.

Speaker

Heather Garvin, PhD, D-ABFA
Associate Professor, Anatomy, Des Moines University

Dr. Garvin obtained a Master's in Forensic Anthropology from Mercyhurst College in 2005 and then returned to the university in 2012 after obtaining a PhD in anatomy to teach undergraduate and graduate students in Forensic Anthropology, Anthropology, and Physician Assistant programs. She has been involved in over 50 forensic cases and just last year became one of only 79 active board-certified forensic anthropologists in the U.S. While teaching anatomy at DMU, she is continuing her forensic anthropological research and has been working on forensic anthropology cases for the state medical examiner's office.