Third Year Ph.D. Student
Pronouns: She/Her

Elise received her MA in Applied Anthropology, with focuses in forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology, from Mississippi State University (MSU). While at MSU, she co-founded the Mississippi State Forensic Recovery Team and assisted Mississippi law enforcement on bioarchaeological/forensic search and recoveries as a Team Lead. She has also interned at forensic institutions in Las Vegas and Houston, gaining additional experience in medicolegal contexts. Her research focuses on deciphering structural and systemic barriers present in demographic groups that might influence the recovery time of human remains in the U.S., and she has participated on research related to addressing structural violence and vulnerability in forensics, etiologies of traumatic brain injuries secondary to cranial depression fractures, and paleopathology. She is also a Professional Archaeologist through the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA). Outside of forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology, her past experiences include research and applications of museum studies, particularly through work at the Field Museum.

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Curriculum Vitae

Second Year M.A. Student
Pronouns: She/Her

Rachel is a second-year master’s student studying biological anthropology with research interests in forensic anthropology, identification, taphonomy, aquatic decomposition, underwater recovery, and queer theory. Her current MA research focuses on answering questions related to the factors that affect our ability as practitioners to achieve the successful identification of a decedent. Prior to attending UNLV, Rachel attended California State University, Chico, where she received a B.A. in Anthropology, a minor in Psychology, and a Certificate in Forensic Science. She was previously an intern at the Chico State Human Identification Lab in Summer 2024 and then assisted as a volunteer from Fall 2024 through Summer 2025, where she assisted with the intake and maceration of human remains, assisted in the photographing and documenting of cases, and assisted in the collection of human remains in the field.

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Curriculum Vitae

First Year M.A. Student
Pronouns: She/They

Grace is a first-year M.A. student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas studying biological anthropology with an interest in forensic anthropology. Prior to UNLV, Grace earned a B.A. degree in both Anthropology and Criminology with a minor in forensic anthropology at Kent State University. Grace spent time in Japan assisting research projects under the NSF-IRES grant program on two separate occasions. In 2024, Grace was an assistant for an endocrinology project detailing the validation of a caloric restriction method to measure thyroid hormones in Japanese macaques. Their tasks included conducting a caloric restriction in the macaques’ diet, collecting fecal samples, preparing wet samples to dry samples, and then extracting hormones to prepare for ELISA tests. In 2025, she returned to Japan to work on paleopathology research involving a comparative study between ancient Jomon and 19th century skeletons. The study aimed to understand if nutritional pathologies (cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasia) would be more prevalent in ancient or more modern populations. Her tasks involved sifting through numerous fragmentary remains, estimating the biological profile of each skeleton, and identifying various paleopathological conditions. Grace’s current research interests within biological anthropology include forensic identification, biological profile estimation, and skeletal trauma analysis.