Wankmiller is one of three graduate students in a pilot course on forensic art and facial reconstruction, a tool police officers use to help identify unknown victims.

“I really enjoy being able to take a skill I have and apply it to a real-life situation,” Wankmiller said. “Part of the way I want to use my training (in anthropology) is to identify unidentified remains (in archeological sites). This class is teaching me one of those skills that is going to be part of what I want to do with my life.”

Sarah Krebs, a road patrol officer and forensic artist for the Michigan State Police, teaches the course. Krebs, who graduated from MSU in 2000, said the creation of the class stems from multiple trips she made to MSU during the past four years.

“I have been doing guest lectures for the anthropology department, criminal justice department and forensics for the past four or five years and (David Foran, director of MSU’s forensic science program) said that some of the students were really interested in doing a little bit more with it,” Krebs said. “It’s going really well. It’s great for both the students and me.”

Students finished their first facial reconstruction project of a black man about two weeks ago and recently started their second and final project of the class — the facial reconstruction of a Caucasian woman. The class meets for about two hours every Friday and students learn multiple aspects of the art of facial reconstruction and forensic science.

Krebs said students are given specific measurements, such as the width of the nose, for the face they will recreate. Students cut a slender tube of rubber based on those measurements and attach it to the face. The depth of the rubber markers will tell students how deep to mold the clay at a certain point on the skull.

“What you get in the end is a likeness of what a person would look like in real life,” Krebs said. “If there was anything else found at the crime scene, like eyeglasses, you can actually incorporate it into your facial reconstruction.”

Other details, such as a person’s hair style, can become more difficult to recreate if the forensic artist does not have a hair sample of the victim, Krebs said. For many of her cases, Krebs will place wigs with varying styles and lengths of hair on her sculpture and have each be photographed for the press release.

“There’s a lot of stuff you can’t predict from the bone,” Krebs said. “Hair length and hair style are some of them.”

JoAnn Wallace, an anthropology graduate student, said she knew she would be part of this class after she heard about it online last year.

“I saw it and right away I said, ‘Yes, I want that class,’” Wallace said. “What I’m working on now in anthropology is a master’s in mortuary analysis and I’ve always been interested in forensics. I knew this would be very interesting to me.”

Despite the course’s popularity among the inaugural class of students, Foran said he is unsure when it will be offered again.

“We have to find out student demand and things like that to see if we will offer it again,” Foran said.