Research Methods in Human Skeletal Biology

Dr. Megan K. Moore graduated from the Ohio State University with honors distinction in Anthropology. She received two scholarships to conduct her honors thesis research in Athienou, Cyprus on population distance using adult odontometrics of individuals from a Medieval cemetery. Dr. Moore completed a Masters of Science degree at the University of Oregon, Eugene, in Anthropology. She received a Graduate Teaching Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. From 1999-2000, she worked as a Forensic Anthropologist with the Physicians for Human Rights in Cyprus to exhume and repatriate the remains of approximately two hundred soldiers killed during the war between Turkey and Greek Cyprus in 1974. Dr. Moore received her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2008. During her doctoral program in Tennessee, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant for the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering, the Department of Anthropology, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Her dissertation, “Body Mass Estimation from the Human Skeleton” was funded by a dissertation fellowship from the National Institute of Justice and examined the adaptations of the modern human skeleton to the body mass extremes of obesity and emaciation using computed tomography, densitometry and analysis of skeletal pathology. She spent several months in Bogotá, Colombia training Colombian forensic scientists; these courses include Forensic Archaeology; Advanced Forensic Archaeology; Skeletal Trauma Analysis; and Research Methods in Human Skeletal Biology. She has taught a wide variety of lectures and labs in US institutions including: Introduction to Biological Anthropology; Human Adaptation; Anatomy and Physiology; Evolution of Monkeys and Apes; Nutritional Anthropology; Human Genetics; and Human Growth and Development. She has authored and co-authored articles appearing in Forensic Science International, the Journal of Forensic Sciences and the Journal of Forensic Identification. In addition, she has presented papers at professional meetings and conferences including International Congress on Obesity, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering and the International Association for Identification. Dr. Moore currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She pursues research on the effects of obesity on the growing adolescent skeleton in collaboration with the Bone and Joint Injury, Prevention and Rehabilitation Center in Ann Arbor. Dr. Moore is the faculty advisor of the Anthropology Club and Amnesty International and an active member of the Institutional Review Board at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.