Michigan State researcher details Macromorphoscopic Databank, a tool to standardize ancestry estimates

Joseph Heffner, an assistant professor at Michigan State University and a board-certified forensic anthropologist, presented the Macromorphoscopic Databank (MAMD) and the MMS analytical program during a forensic anthropology session. He said the project, funded in part by the National Institute of Justice, aims to standardize macromorphoscopic trait collection and provide probabilistic ancestry estimates to support forensic identification.

Heffner framed the problem as one of data and standardization. "This is something that's been, on my mind for about probably 10 or 15 years," he said, explaining that earlier trait studies suffered from small, inconsistent samples and unclear trait definitions. The project’s three goals are to develop large-scale standardized protocols, assemble a geographically diverse reference database and build an analytical program that classifies geographic…