Jaymelee Kim, Anthropologist
 

Committed to improving the human condition through forensic capacity-building, justice analysis, and community outreach.

 
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Credentials

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 is a board certified forensic anthropologist and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University, a research institution in the heart of Detroit. Dr. Kim is broadly trained in and has experience in cultural, archaeological, linguistic, and biological anthropology research. 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. Her areas of expertise are forensic anthropology, political and legal anthropology, human anatomy, thanatology, alternative justice, and human rights interventions. Theories such structural violence, settler colonialism, or critical human rights inform her survivor-centered research in the US, Canada, and African Great Lakes region.

In her career, she has:

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

  • advised nonprofit and non-governmental organizations in diversity, grant-writing, survivor services, and organizational behavior;

  • worked in cultural resource management;

  • conducted North American and Greek archaeological investigations;

  • overseen anatomical cadaver labs and forensic spaces.

With experience in human remains excavation and analysis spanning over sixteen years, Dr. Kim has worked 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. Currently, Dr. Kim consults as a forensic anthropologist primarily for the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office in southern Michigan and assists the Detroit Police Department and FBI with Operation UNITED, a grassroots initiative to identify cold cases.

Jaymelee Kim is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, earning her BS in packaging (materials) science. She completed her MA and PhD in anthropology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Her community-oriented research has been awarded funding from organizations such as the National Science Foundation and Wenner-Gren Foundation. She has taught university courses at Lincoln Memorial University, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, The University of Findlay, and Wayne State University. 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 in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, American Anthropological Association, Society for Historical Archaeology, the Society of Forensic Anthropologists (SOFA), the Ohio Mortuary Response Team (OMORT), and the Michigan Mortuary Response Team (MiMORT).


Ohio Mortuary Response Team and DMORT Region V. 2023