As a sociocultural and biological anthropologist, I work at the intersection of mass violence, human rights, and forensic science in Latin America, specifically Colombia and Guatemala. My research focuses on the social and political dynamics of forensic scientific efforts—mostly by forensic anthropologists and archaeologists—to locate, identify, and return the remains of people killed in human rights violations. My book manuscript, Do Bones Speak? Forensic Science, War, and the Restless Dead in Colombia, is an ethnographic exploration of the role that forensic investigation has played in Colombia’s 2016 Peace Accords, including the demands for forensic exhumations by families of the dead and disappeared. My current teaching centers on asylum seeking among primarily Latin American immigrant populations in New York City.
My academic research was inspired by years of work in human rights advocacy and postwar forensic science at non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This included public policy advocacy in Washington, DC with the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), to promote adherence to international human rights within US policies towards Latin America. Additionally, I spent four years in Guatemala as a Fulbright Fellow and working at the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) to exhume and identify the remains of primarily indigenous peoples killed in genocidal acts of war.
My research has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation, the J. William Fulbright Program, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. I also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Latin American Studies at Rutgers University.
Education
PhD, Anthropology, New York University, 2019
MA, Anthropology, New York University, 2014
BA, Anthropology, Haverford College, 2004
Academic Focus
Violence, Human Rights, Forensic Anthropology, Memory, Death Ritual, STS, Medical Anthropology, Colombia, Guatemala, Latin America.
Publications
2019 “In Death.” Fieldsights, . Theorizing the Contemporary. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/in-death
2019 “Do Bones Speak? Forensic Scientific Translation of Mass Violence in Colombia,” Critical Studies, Volume 4: 45-62.
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