This year's MacArthur Fellows include researchers who fuse science and justice
Forensic anthropologist Kate Spradley has been named a MacArthur Fellow for her work in identifying and exhuming the remains of migrants in Texas cemeteries. Her efforts aim to restore dignity to those who died during migration and provide closure to their families by uncovering illegal burial practices.
Why it matters
This recognition highlights the intersection of forensic science and human rights, bringing attention to the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border.
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It should have been a fairly routine exhumation of a man's body from a local cemetery in Brooks County in southern Texas: ask the funeral home to point out the right plot on a map, and then dig up the remains with shovels and trowels.
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But Kate Spradley , a forensic anthropologist at Texas State University, had run into a problem.
"We don't know where he's buried," the staff there told her.
Nor did they know where more than a hundred other Central American migrants who had died were interred.
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