Jane Buikstra is a Regents’ Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University (US), where she was the Inaugural Director of the Center for Bioarchaeological Research. She received MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago and holds an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Durham University (UK). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Association of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), and a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Sciences. She was the Inaugural Editor of the International Journal of Paleopathology and is the President of the Center for American Archeology. She is past-President of the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA), and the Paleopathology Association. She has received the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award (AAPA), the Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Science (Society for American Archaeology), the T. Dale Stewart Award (AAFS), the Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology (Archaeological Institute of America), The Lloyd Cotsen Prize for Lifetime Achievement in World Archaeology, the Gorjanovic-Kramberger Medal in Anthropology, Croatian Society of Anthropology, the Aleš Hrdlička Memorial Medal, Anthropology Society of the Czech Republic, the Shanghai Archaeological Forum Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Distinguished Career Award.
Credited with the establishing the field of (human) bioarcheology, Prof. Buikstra is actively engaged in collaborative research on the global history of infectious diseases, the application of “one health” concepts to the human condition today and in the past, the sacrifice of children in the Ancient Americas, juvenile sex ratios as measures of human health and gender-based neglect, the role of worldview in human resiliency, structural and physical violence during the formation of the Greek democracy, and occupational specialization as recorded in the human skeleton. Her research foci thus include bioarchaeology, paleopathology, forensic anthropology, and paleodemography. Prof. Buikstra has conducted bioarchaeological research in mid-continental North America, the Iberian Peninsula, Colonial Argentina, the west-central Andes, and Mayan Mesoamerica. A current project focuses upon the Eastern Mediterranean, anchored by the Phaleron Bioarchaeology Project (PBP) at the Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (http://phaleron.digital-ascsa.org/project/). During her fellowship at the DFG Center for Advanced Studies Prof. Buikstra plans to advance collaborations with the PBP, focused upon reconstructing physical activities and occupational specializations in the past and distinguishing peri-mortem from post-mortem blunt force trauma.