humanitarian-human-rights-resource-center-hhrrc-aafs-forensic-science

Projects Supported by the HHRRC

Projects Supported by the HHRRC with funds from AAFS and the National Institute of Justice through their Forensic Technology Center of Excellence Program, RTI International


2024

Macarena Arias Aravena (Chile) Exploring the isotope composition of contemporary Chilean population: Preliminary data for forensic applications. ($7000)

Despoina Floui (Greece) Capacity building for missing and unidentified persons in Greece: Exploring the potential of data digitization and centralization. ($9970)

Jean Claude Fogno (Cameroon) International capacity building workshop for human rights defenders and clinicians (forensic doctors and psychologists/psychiatrists) on techniques for collecting physical and psychological evidence of torture. ($9840)

Isaac Onoka (Tanzania) Capacity building for Tanzania police officers on the potential of stable isotopes for human identification. ($9995)

Courtney Siegert (USA) The Development of a Transnational Migrant Identification Center in the Rio Grande Valley. ($10,000)

Tal Simmons (USA) The East Marshall Street Well Project: Community Engaged Research and the DNA Re-association of the commingled remains of Richmond's Ancestors. ($9890)

Hao Yu (China) Bring every hero home. ($10,000)


2023

Katelyn Bolhofner (USA) 'They are our parents' – Implementing an anthropological approach to education and excavation in the effort to locate, identify, and repatriate victims of Operation Condor in Paraguay. ($9,750)

Desiré Brits (South Africa) Developing an isoscape for human provenance estimation in Gauteng, South Africa. ($9,600)

Natalia Camacho Torres (Colombia) Construction of a national baseline for hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and strontium in hair stable isotopes to identify the region of origin of unidentified victims of the internal armed conflict ($5,650)

Mohammad Nasir Ahamad (India) nasir@yenepoya.edu.in Capacity building for Humanitarian ethics in forensic Investigation, reporting, and research publication dealing with cadavers in the Indian context. ($10,000)

2022

Phoebe Stubblefield (USA) Recovery and Analysis of Human Remains Derived from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. ($12,332)

Herbert Mushumba (Rwanda) Capacity Building for Rwandan Medical Officers in the field of Forensic Pathology Basic Skills. ($14,975)

Jack Hietpas (USA) Hair and Natural Textiles as Detectors for Chlorine Gas Exposure. ($12,700)

Meri Gonashvili (Republic of Georgia) The Georgian Recovery, Documentation, Identification Project: Anthropological Analysis of Victims of the 1937-1938 Soviet Repressions in Adjara. ($14,999)

Uwom Eze (Nigeria) African Society of Forensic Medicine. ($15,000)

Claudia Plans (Brazil) Book publication: Human Rights from the perspective of the right to life. Forensic Anthropology and Justice in the case of violations. ($1,890)

Tumisang Thabo Mbedzi (UK/Africa) Disaster Victim Identification and Migration - The Value of Using Scarification and Tribal Markings as Secondary Identifiers in Mass Fatality Incidents. ($14,525)

Denise Gemmellaro (USA) Establishment of the First Forensic Laboratory in the Republic of the Gambia with an Initial Focus on Forensic Entomology. ($13,075)

Robin Reineke (USA) Colibrí Latin America Initiative. ($10,565)


2021

Daniela Orozco (Columbia) dorozco@equitas.org.co Construction of a National Hydrogen and Oxygen Isoscape for Colombia as a Baseline for the Identification of Region of Origin of Unidentified Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict.

Nory Condor Alacron (Peru) ncondordj@mpfn.gob.pe Humanitarian Identification of Violated and Disappeared Persons in Chungui District of Ayacucho, Peru.

Meri Gonashvili (Republic of Georgia) meri.gonashvili@gmail.com Anthropological Analysis of Victims associated with the 1937-1938 Soviet-Era Terror in Adjara, Georgia.


2020

Roberto C. Parra Chinchilla (Peru) ropachi@gmail.com Finding Family, Finding Home: Applying Predictive Isotope Models And Other Forensic Tools On Unidentified Deceased In Peru During The Peruvian Armed Conflict 1980-2000.

Ximena Chávez Balderas (Mexico). Xchaezb@tulane.edu The Forensic Anthropology Center Of Quintana Roo: Human Identification And The Recovery Of Dignity.

Roxana Enriquez Farias (Mexico) R.Enriquez@emaf.org.mx Institutionalization Of Local Forensic Capabilities.

Derek Congram (Colombia) Dcongram@icrc.org Exposure Of Iberoamerican Forensic Investigations: Adjusting For Bias In Forensic Science Literature.<

Luciano O. Valenzuela (Argentina) Lucianoovalenzuela@gmail.com Developing Isotopic Maps and Models For Accurate And Precise Human Traceability And Provenance In Argentina.

Carlos Martin Molina Gallego (Colombia) Martin.Molina@uan.edu.co Application Of Geophysical Methods, Remote Detection, Environmental Variables And New Algorithms For Searching Graves Corresponding To Burials Related To Human Rights Violations.

Lay See Khoo (Malaysia) Khoolaysee@yahoo.com Fingerprint Scan For The Dead: Real-Time Identification During Search And Recovery Phase In Large Scale Disaster.

Claudia R. Plens (Brazil) Clauplens@gmail.com The Diaspora Of The Xavantes Of Maraiwatsede: Colonization And Indigenous Genocide In Modern Times.


2019

Claudia Regina Plens (Brazil) clauplens@gmail.com Building Up Human Rights Through Professional Qualification And Research In Forensic Anthropology In Brazil.

Roberto C. Parra Chinchilla (Peru) ropachi@gmail.com Finding Family: Using Stable And Radiogenic Isotope Analysis And Isoscapes To Aid In The Identification Of Victims With Unknown Identity During The Peruvian Armed Conflict 1980-2000.

Daniel Castellanos-Gutierrez (USA) dcastel5@binghamton.edu Isotope Analysis In Modern Colombian Teeth: A Forensic Application.

Roxana Enriquez Farias (Mexico) r.enriquez@emaf.org.mx Search Strategies And Identification In Cases Of Enforced Disappearance In Mexico.

Justine De Mayo (Lebanon) jdimayo@actforthedisappeared.com Building Forensic Capacity In Lebanon To Protect The Gravesites And Prepare For The Identification Of The Missing Of The Civil War.

Candice Small (South Africa) candice.small@wits.ac.za Dental Aging Of African Populations: Modern Imaging Approaches To Aid The Humanitarian Crisis.


2018

Desire Brits and colleagues, University of Witwatersrand/Pretoria South Africa:  Decomposition and Taphonomy in the interior of South Africa:

Franco Mora, Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team:  Humanitarian identification of the victims of the Lurigancho Prison Massacre:

Saskia Ammer and colleagues, University of Coimbra, Portugal: Reuniting the remains of undocumented border crossers with their families through isotope analysis (U.S. Mexico border)

 

Hugh Tuller, University of Tennessee, USA: Human Identification, Forensic Anthropology and Archeology Training Workshop in Kampala, Uganda

Ileana Buzic, Pisa University, Italy: Aging unaccompanied minors: teeth estimation through the "cut-off" approach in four samples of populations from Romania and the Republic of Moldova


2017

Strategies for the Identification of the 800 Victims of the Migrant Shipwreck of April 18, 2015.  Professor Cristina Cattaneo, Milano, Italy.

Operation Identification: Exhuming the Unidentified.  (Unidentified Migrants along the U.S. Mexico border).  Kate Spradley  Texas State University.

 

Scene Documentation for Human Rights Investigators.  Tal Simmons, Virginia Commonwealth University and Christoph Koetti, Amnesty International.

Forensic Investigations in the Northern Region of Guatemala.  Mario Vasquez, Equipo Forense Interdisciplinario, Guatemala.


2016

Preserving Evidence of the Khmer Rouge Genocide: Analysis and Conservation of the Human Skeletal Remains in Cambodia and Training of Staff.  Julie Fleischman, on behalf of Mr. Veon Vuthy.

Building Forensic Capacity in Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology to Help in the Identification of Human Remains, with the Participation of the Families of the Disappeared Persons at Coahuila, Mexico.  Michael Chamberlin.

Application of Stable Isotope Forensics to the Identification of Unidentified Border Crossers from the Texas-Mexico Border.  Eric J. Bartelink.

Strengthening (Training) in the Human Identification Department of the PGJE (Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado) in Tlaxcala, Mexico.  Roxana Enriquez Farias.

A Fully Computerized Method of Osteometric Sorting for Pairwise Comparisons in Large Assemblages (Human Remains).  C.N. Stephan and JE Byrd.

Detection of Nerve Agent Exposure from Human Bone Tissue.  Katie M. Rubin.

Technical Assistance in Establishing a Forensic Laboratory within the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines Dedicated to the Investigation of Human Rights Violations.  Joseph Andrew D. Jimenez.