Forensic anthropology program explodes at Ohio State

An error occurred while preparing your download

Forensic anthropology program explodes at Ohio State

Consulting and continuing education among new offerings

Since it launched in 2023, the forensic anthropology major at The Ohio State University has skyrocketed.

"We had five students in the major the first year," said W. Scott McGraw, chair of the anthropology department. "Now we're up to 100."

To keep up with the growing interest, the department opened a state-of-the-art forensic anthropology lab on campus and hired Nicholas Passalacqua to lead the program.

"Nick is the guy," McGraw said. "We're very fortunate to have him here. He founded the subject journal, he wrote the textbook, he's really the focal point of forensic anthropology."

Students are not the only group showing enthusiasm for the new major.

Since his arrival in 2024, Passalacqua has created the Forensic Anthropology Services and Training (FAST) program. Now, outside agencies can request assistance from the university in identifying human remains.

Passalacqua is the only certified forensic anthropologist with an active forensic anthropology laboratory in the state, so he frequently hears from law enforcement agencies, coroners and medical examiners.

"FAST represents our consulting arm," he said. "When casework pops up, FAST allows us to accept a case and work on it, for a fee."

These fees support student and faculty research, as well as things like attending national conferences and purchasing equipment.

In addition to generating revenue, the consulting work provides Passalacqua with opportunities to teach in the field.

"We'll get a call, 'Hey, we found some human remains, can you come and make sure we found all of them?'" he said. "In those instances, we try to bring students with us."

An additional initiative of FAST is creating short, continuing-education courses that allow non-Ohio State students and professionals to learn about specific topics in forensic anthropology.

For five days in May, Passalacqua will lead Fragmentary Human Osteology, a course that will teach participants how to determine if an item is human bone. The class is possible, in part, because of the university's fragmentary bone collection.

"We'll start with a brief review of whole bone osteology," he said. "Then each day, the bone fragments get smaller and smaller and it gets harder and harder for you to learn bone features and figure out what those pieces are."

Human skeleton collections are rare in the United States. Most academics work with plastic casts, Passalacqua said. Working with casts is fine, but being confronted with real bones is a unique experience.

"Not only do we have whole human skeletons, but we also have fragmentary skeletons that the descendent community allows us to use for teaching - they're ethically sourced. They allow us to teach about the human skeleton in the best way possible."

Participants won't just be looking at human bones.

"We're going to include some non-human bones, too," he said. "That's an important part of working with the human skeleton, identifying something weird or unexpected. Maybe that means it's not human."

The class also covers what's known as "medico-legal significance," which refers to something having importance that is both medical and legal.

People find bones all the time, Passalacqua said. The key is determining whether the bone has medico-legal significance.

"Is this bone significant to the death investigation system? Does it need to be processed? Does this person need to be identified? Do they need a death certificate?"

In some cases, while a bone may not be significant to an investigation, it can be significant for other reasons. Passalacqua has helped reunite families with the remains of missing loved ones and with the return of bodies to their countries of origin decades after military conflict.

"I find it rewarding," he said. "Not only is it a humanitarian mission where you're giving back, but you're giving back through scientific inquiry. I'm a nerd about that. I enjoy challenges that are evidence-based."

The May FAST class will test if the buzz outside the university matches the inside.

"It's really a proof of concept," Passalacqua said. "This isn't really being offered anywhere else, so I want to see if there's enough interest for us to do this here."

McGraw isn't worried about that.

"Nick's been here just about a year and a half," he said. "He still doesn't quite understand Buckeye Nation. When I saw that he was planning this, I thought it was wonderful. You're leveraging so much history, so much reputation. This is the kind of thing that people will just love."

More Ohio State News