Credentials

2024, Registered Professional Archaeologist

2023, Diplomate, American Board of Forensic Anthropology

2014, PhD, Anthropology, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

2014, Graduate Certificate in Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights

2014, Graduate Certificate in Linguistics

Dr. Jaymelee Kim, RPA, D-ABFA is a board certified forensic anthropologist and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University, a research institution in the heart of Detroit. Growing up as part of the Indigenous United Mingo Remnant Band, in part inspired her longstanding research on the Indian Boarding Schools and forensic human rights more broadly.

Dr. Kim is broadly trained in and has experience in cultural, archaeological, linguistic, and biological anthropology research and practice. Currently, Dr. Kim consults as a forensic anthropologist primarily for medical examiner’s offices of southeastern Michigan and assists the Detroit Police Department and FBI with Operation UNITED and other cold case investigations. She also participates in the Carlisle (Industrial School) Barracks Disinterment Program’s repatriation efforts.

Her work is applied — or used to address real world problems — through analyzing, improving, and co-developing justice and forensic intervention in the aftermath of violence, disasters, and historic abuses (e.g., institutionalization and warfare). Her areas of expertise are forensic anthropology, human anatomy, thanatology, alternative justice, and human rights interventions. She has extensive fieldwork and laboratory experience:

• working for multiple forensic organizations, including the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center, or Body Farm; the Knox County Medical Examiner’s Office; and the Knox County Regional Forensic Center;

• providing forensic training, survivor services consultation, and disaster response consultation domestically and abroad for local organizations and national governments;

• working in cultural resource management;

• conducting North American and Greek archaeological investigations;

• overseeing anatomical cadaver labs and forensic spaces.

Her community-oriented research has been awarded funding from organizations such as the National Science Foundation and Wenner-Gren Foundation. Dr. Kim serves on the publication and documents committee of the Humanitarian and Human Rights Resource Center; consults for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; and is a member of diverse anthropological and victim search/recovery organizations.