Unlike the television show “CSI,” forensic anthropology professor Mary Manhein works on real cases. But she admits shows like that have increased the popularity of her profession.”Television audiences in many ways are very smart,” she said. “They love this stuff, and they especially want to be involved because it does have an element of mystery to it.”Forensic anthropology is a field that identifies human remains and creates profiles to help law enforcement successfully identify someone.Manhein has been teaching at the University since 1986 and has built the lab out of the forensic anthropology department. The Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services lab has a staff of six, including Manhein. The lab creates profiles of the remains and then enters the information into the Louisiana Repository for unidentified and missing persons information database. Manhein also serves as the director of the repository.”There is no other lab like ours in the country,” she said. “There are a lot of labs in university settings that do traditional forensic anthropology work but not to combine them with the database work we do or the age progression.”Ginesse Listi, anthropology assistant professor, works in the FACES lab as a forensic anthropologist and originally worked as a graduate student in the mid ‘90s when the FACES lab started to grow.”It’s changed a ton,” Listi said. “When I started, we averaged maybe 30 to 35 cases a year. Now it’s 50 or 52 cases a year.”The cases that interest Manhein are the ones that have gone unsolved for several years — what she calls “cold cases.””I’m intrigued especially by the cases we’ve had for years because we have new technology,” Manhein said.Manhein investigated one case involving a man found in the Atchafalaya River 10 years ago. The man’s remains had been sitting in the FACES lab without being identified until around a month ago, Manhein said. She said the information collected finally “clicked.”Cases she doesn’t really enjoy cases involving children or more violent murders. Manhein said she worked on cases involving serial killers Sean Gillis and Derrick Todd Lee. But she doesn’t allow cases to affect her emotionally.”It could trouble you so much that you couldn’t do your job,” she said. “You have to be able to compartmentalize sympathy for the family, but you have to do your job.”Listi said she had to learn how to disconnect work from her personal life.”I don’t really talk about work outside of work,” Listi said. “If you dwell on it and allow it to be personal, you can’t work.”Manhein said she was part of a disaster mortuary team that recovered astronauts’ remains from the Columbia disaster — the space shuttle that disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003.”It was very moving,” she said. “There were astronauts that came to the site and were thanking us for helping them. It was a tragic accident.”Sworn to secrecy on much of the detail in legal cases, Manhein said she would not describe the more gruesome scenes.Lauren Pharr, anthropology graduate student, said she is impressed by Manhein and knew about the FACES lab’s reputation prior to studying at the University. Manhein is Pharr’s thesis adviser.”She not only knows what she’s talking about, but she knows how to describe it to her students and actually teach what she is talking about,” Pharr said. In such an emotional field, Manhein said she tries to laugh when she is outside of work and keep learning interesting. Listi described her as very approachable.”She has done many different things, and she’s always willing to help if she can,” Listi said. “She is very down to earth.”Some students may have even witnessed her re-enact the actions of a male gorilla.”There’s an activity that male gorillas do in order, not to pop a juvenile [gorilla] on the back but to scare them,” she said. “So I talk about that [in class] and sometimes put on the gorilla mask and ‘ooh. ooh. ahh. ooh. ooh. ahh.’ (beats on chest)”—-Contact Sean Griffin at [email protected]