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Alumni Spotlight

Dr. Caitlin Vogelsberg

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) meetings is just around the corner. We are excited to escape the cold and reunite with old friends in Anaheim, CA. Before we set off for sunny weather and Disney Resorts, and of course forensic programming, we interviewed former MSUFAL member, Dr. Caitlin C. M. Vogelsberg, about her MSU experience.

While not a “life-altering story”, Dr. Vogelsberg’s interest in forensic anthropology was part of a longer process. She had always been interested in people, biology, and skeletons (along with somewhat more macabre topics).  She realized forensic anthropology was the perfect mix of all these things sometime in middle school, so pre-CSI and Bones! By the start of her undergraduate coursework, she was all in and nothing would throw her off course.

Dr. Vogelsberg is the current Forensic Anthropology Post-doctoral Fellow at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) in Tucson, AZ. Her fellowship is part of a National Institute of Justice Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Award. This award is used to fund her position, and submit a multiyear backlog of DNA samples from unidentified individuals. Although that specific project is ending, the PCOME was awarded an additional grant for the 2020-year cycle, which will continue to fund the fellowship. Apart from managing those two grant-funded projects, Dr. Vogelsberg conducts forensic anthropological casework alongside Dr. Bruce Anderson and Dr. Jen Vollner (MSU alumni), for Pima County and several other contracted counties in Southern Arizona.

While her focus is working on grant-funded projects at the PCOME, the initial results of that grant inspired a collaborative project with the Colibrí Center for Human Rights (Tucson, AZ). This collaborative endeavor examines the evolution of DNA-based identifications at the PCOME over several years, looking for patterns in the types of organizations funding projects, identification rates, identification methods, and correlation of these data to any specific populations. Dr. Vogelsberg and colleagues will be presenting their findings at the upcoming AAFS meeting in Anaheim. She also mentioned that she is slowly returning to her dissertation work, which focused on the identification of deceased border crossers, with updated geospatial and biological data to investigate patterns in migrant deaths throughout Southern Arizona.

At the MSUFAL, Dr. Vogelsberg participated in several forensic cases. She notes that the process and flow of casework at the MSUFAL and PCOME are very similar, in no small part due to Dr. Fenton being a student of Dr. Birkby, who founded the PCOME lab. Because of this, she was well-prepared for her current post. Dr. Vogelsberg noted that the MSUFAL interaction with law enforcement and medical examiner personnel helped make her transition to full time work in an active medical examiner’s office much easier.

She advises students interested in forensic anthropology to decide if it is something they really want to do, and if so, to stick with it. “Many people are interested in the field and how it is presented on TV and in books, but if you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing this, you have to love it,” she says. And that includes every aspect, from field work to case reports to reading current research. It’s definitely not always exciting, but that passion for the topic will be what keeps you going. Reflecting on the path she has followed, Dr. Vogelsberg notes that it was “definitely not a linear process and full of, what at times, felt like setbacks. Sometimes you won’t feel like you have any idea what you are doing or what you are going to do next, but if you stay strong things tend to work themselves out.”

While very happy in her current location, Tucson, Arizona, Dr. Vogelsberg misses running the river path on campus and, one of her favorite spots for tots and a beer, Crunchy’s Burgers and Beer. The MSUFAL is very proud of Dr. Vogelsberg’s accomplishments and achievements. We wish her the very best in the future and want her to know she will always have a home in East Lansing, MI.

Authored by: Kelly Kamnikar

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