The Forensic Anthropology Legacy of Dr. Ellis Kerley

Dr. Ellis R. Kerley taught at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland from 1972 to 1987, and served as department chair from 1974 to 1978. He was a biological anthropologist with a specialty in the analysis of human and non-human primate bones. His forensic cases included analysis on the remains of the astronauts after the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986 and Nazi War criminal Dr. Josef Mengele. His most significant contribution to forensic anthropology was the development of a method to determine age at death from histological analysis of bone.

Dr. Marilyn London, a Forensic Anthropologist for the US Department of Health and Human Services and lecturer within the Department of Anthropology will discuss Dr. Kerley's methods and applications. Dr. London is employed as necessary to help identify human remains from multiple-fatality incidents. She also analyzies and documents human skeletal remains in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History.

Click here to read about Dr. Kerley in the Winter 2015 issue of Terp Magazine.