Dr. Angela Soler

We are very excited to feature our next MSUFAL alumna, Dr. Angela Soler, D-ABFA!

Dr. Angela Soler is a board certified Forensic Anthropologist with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) working in the Forensic Anthropology Unit (FAU). Working within a medical examiner’s office, Dr. Soler says that her experience and education in anthropological trauma analyses has been integral in her forensic anthropology casework at the OCME. As a liaison to the Identifications Unit, Dr. Soler is also in charge of unidentified NamUs entries and cold case management. Dr. Soler currently manages ~1,100 unidentified individuals in the NamUs system.

The NYC OCME FAU also assists with scene recoveries, for which her experiences at MSU have prepared her, both through forensic casework and bioarchaeology excavations. Dr. Soler received her PhD from Michigan State examining the “Life and Death in a Medieval Nubian Farming Community: The Experience at Mis Island”. She says that the unique, intensive training in forensics, biological anthropology, and bioarchaeology here at MSU has continued to inform her outlook. Dr. Soler spent two summers in Albania which, not only was an amazing opportunity developmentally for her career focusing on fragmentary osteology and paleopathology, she also was able to immerse herself in a small Albanian town connecting with people from around the world. People are also what she misses most about being in Lansing. Her mentors and closest relationships grew here, including Drs. Todd Fenton, Norm Sauer, Carolyn Isaac, Cate Bird, Jennifer Vollner, and Jared Beatrice.

Dr. Soler went to George Washington University for her undergraduate degree and first took a forensic anthropology course with Dr. Doug Ubelaker who utilized the collections at the Smithsonian and shared forensic case studies that he had worked on. Between this introductory course and advanced osteology with Marilyn London and Dr. Dave Hunt, she was hooked. She quickly realized the potential that forensic anthropology had to truly help people which directed her to focus on human rights and identification.

Dr. Soler’s research currently focuses on identification, specifically the identification of long-term unknown individuals. Unfortunately, long-term unknown individuals are more typically from marginalized, vulnerable populations such as those experiencing homelessness, undocumented migrants, transgender individuals, and sex workers. In these cases, additional, contextual evidence is crucial. Dr. Soler hopes that her research with Drs. Jared Beatrice and Robin Reineke on structural violence and skeletal indicators of stress in undocumented migrants will help propel the identification of these individuals forward. She also collaborates with the Forensic Biology Department on running mitochondrial DNA and Y-STRs to help pinpoint what region of the world a migrant individual might originate from by pairing haplotype frequencies with scene information and personal effects, overlapping as many layers of data as possible. Dr. Soler tells current students to have an open mind when exploring the field and take as many opportunities as possible. Furthermore, when you work as a forensic anthropologist in a medical examiner’s office, you are not only working with bones. Most forensic anthropologists are also working in identifications or as a dual death investigator. She says that her internship in the autopsy suite at Sparrow Medical Examiner’s Office (Lansing, MI) during her time at MSU really helped give her the broad experience needed to work in a medical examiner’s office. She also recommends trying something completely different from what you think you want to do. She didn’t expect to get so involved in bioarchaeology while at MSU but says that her field experience in Albania, and her work with the Nubian collection helps her continue to think in a broader, anthropological way.

When COVID-19 hit New York City this past spring, many departments at the OCME, including the Forensic Anthropology Unit, had to shift into different duties— including the disaster morgue and the identification and family outreach units. Talking to so many families throughout these times has given Dr. Soler a different perspective on thinking about the impact our work as forensic scientists has on living people. Not only are we a voice for the deceased but we also provide information for those still grieving. While it can be overwhelming, it makes you consider how you approach each case and how it will affect the individuals’ surviving loved ones. If there was one thing that she could say on behalf of the forensic anthropology discipline it is reminding ourselves what we are doing and who we are serving as forensic anthropologists. It is so important to remember how we fit into the broader world of death investigation. While we are serving the criminal justice community, our purpose is also to provide answers for families while understanding who a person was and what they meant to others.

Thank you Dr. Angela Soler for sharing your insights into your experiences both at MSU and beyond.

Authored by: Micayla Spiros