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Gift establishes the first graduate fellowships in Forensic Anthropology
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| Dr. Early, left, assisting Dr. Melbye on Guanajuato mummy project. |
The Grady G. Early Fellowship in Forensic Anthropology is the first graduate fellowship endowment to be established in the Department of Anthropology. The endowment will provide stipends for several graduate students each year to conduct research projects at Texas State’s new Forensic Research Facility, located at the Freeman Ranch near San Marcos. The first fellowship recipient will be announced in March. Dr. Early, who retired in 2000 after almost three decades of teaching math and computer science at Texas State, has been an enthusiastic supporter of Texas State’s forensic anthropology program for many years. After retiring from the Department of Computer Science, Dr. Early wanted to learn something about the liberal arts. He began by enrolling in several of Texas State’s anthropology courses. A course on physical anthropology sparked his interest in forensic anthropology—the study of human bones to determine such things as age, sex, stature, ancestry, history of trauma or disease, date of death, and cause of death. Scientists use forensic anthropology in their studies of ancient and recent cultures, and law enforcement officials rely on forensic anthropology in determining the identities of individuals whose remains are highly decomposed.
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| Dr. Early, center, and Dr. Melbye lifting a mummy at the Guanajuato mummy museum. |
“I enjoy having the students come out, and my first thought was to give our graduate students a little help. But the research is important, too, because it aids the law enforcement community in their efforts to identify human remains,” Dr. Early said about the gift.
“The Department of Anthropology is very appreciative of Dr. Early's gift,” said Department of Anthropology Chair Dr. Jon McGee. “We believe that these fellowships will encourage the quality and creativity of research that forensic anthropology students in our master’s program will be able to conduct. In turn, those students will be better prepared to start careers in forensic anthropology or to continue their educations at the Ph.D. level.”
“As a result of Dr. Early’s generous donation to the forensic anthropology program at Texas State, graduate student research will be funded and conducted at our newly acquired Forensic Research Facility,” said Dr. Michelle Hamilton, Director of the facility. “The results of this research will assist us in understanding problems in the identification of unknown human remains, and in estimating time-since-death intervals—especially here in Texas. Dr. Early’s generous gift will pave the way for students to work on projects that will help law enforcement agencies, the medicolegal community, and families of the missing and deceased for many years to come.”
“Dr. Early has been a strong supporter of our forensic anthropology program and has played an active role in helping our graduate students by allowing them the use of his ranch, equipment, and time, to carry out their research,” said Dr. Melbye, who directs the research projects of many of the graduate students specializing in forensic anthropology at Texas State. “Dr. Early’s generous gift is greatly appreciated by myself, by our students, and by the Department. The fact that it has been designated for research at our new Forensic Research Facility is a tremendous boost to our program.”
Dr. Early said he is particularly excited that graduate students will soon be able to conduct research at Texas State’s new Forensic Research Facility. The University announced in February that it would locate the open-air lab on University property at the Freeman Ranch. The facility, only the third of its kind in the nation, is the nation’s largest such facility and the only one west of the Mississippi River. Research done at the facility by graduate students and scientists will provide new information on the processes of human decomposition—information that will assist the law enforcement community in identifying human bodies and establishing the time and nature of death. It will also provide training in the identification of skeletal and dental remains. Workshops for law enforcement at the facility will include crime scene training, human identification, cadaver dog training, and numerous other workshops.