Current Faculty Research

Highlights of recent and upcoming faculty research projects

  • Donna Boyd received a $10,000 grant from RU’s College of Science and Technology Research/Scholarly Project Award for her research entitled “Creation of a National Archival Imaging Database for Evaluation of Healing Rates and Estimation of Time Since Injury of Pediatric Antemortem Skeletal Fractures in Child Abuse Investigations”
  • Cliff and Donna Boyd and RUFSI students are conducting a skeletal analysis of six unidentified African-Americans from the historic Stonebridge site near the site of the Old Cloverleaf Mall in Richmond.  These historic burials were excavated as part of a Cultural Resource Management salvage project by Circa – CRM due to impending construction.  Human remains from these burials will be cleaned, inventoried, and analyzed in terms of their biological profile and antemortem, perimortem, and postmortem condition prior to reburial (see Fig 12)
  • Cliff and Donna Boyd are investigating genetic/familial relationships between individuals from two Late Prehistoric Native American sites using mitochondrial DNA.  There is a planned submission of grant proposal to NSF in August, 2013, to provide funding for analysis of bone samples; initial data collection from skeletal collections curated at the Smithsonian occurred in May, 2012
  • Donna and Cliff Boyd are investigating secular (microevolutionary) change in African-American mandibles over the past two centuries in relation to slavery and other environmental changes affecting American Blacks across this transition.  This research which will be presented at the upcoming American Association of Physical Anthropology annual meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee in April, 2013
  • Donna and Cliff Boyd are conducting a study entitled “ Defining the Early Perimortem Period: Microscopic and Macroscopic Changes in Subadult Remains Undergoing Pediatric Trauma which will be presented at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual meeting in February, 2013
  • Cliff and Donna Boyd are continuing to investigate the role of archaeological theory in anthropology. They will present a paper entitled “The Scales of Archaeological Theory” at the 78th Annual Society for American Archaeology meeting April 3-7, 2013 in Honolulu, Hawai’I.