The fourth annual Morrison Lecture Series will take place in Clara Thompson Hall on the evening of Thursday, October 29, 2020 at 7:00. In accordance with the University’s COVID-19 policies, seating will be limited, masks will be required, and temperature checks will be conducted at the entrance to the hall. The lecture will also be live-streamed.
Dr. Dana Kollmann, an anthropologist and forensic scientist. Now a Clinical Associate Professor at Towson University, she previously worked for over a decade as a CSI technician for the Baltimore Police Department. The title of her talk will be, “Stepping Behind the Crime-Scene Tape: How a Crime Scene Investigation Really Works.” Through the use of real crime scene photographs, she will discuss how crimes are solved through the collection and analysis of forensic evidence. She will also examine some of the unusual ways forensic scientists have thought outside the box and brought resolution to cases through untraditional means.
Dana Kollmann is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice at Towson University. Professor Kollmann received her BS in Anthropology from Towson University, a Master of Forensic Science from George Washington University, and a MS and PhD in Anthropology from American University. Dana’s training at the Smithsonian Institution took her to museums throughout the country working on curated skeletal collections and to the Balkans where she performed exhumations and analyses of war dead interred in mass graves. She later spent over a decade working for the Baltimore County Police Department as a crime scene investigator. Dana came to Towson University in 2007, but has continued to use her forensic and archaeological skills performing excavations of Mayan tombs in Guatemala, recovering WWII marines from the Pacific Island of Tarawa, exhuming WWII airmen from plane crash sites throughout Germany, and working with regional agencies on forensic and archaeological cases involving human remains. Dana currently serves as a forensic anthropologist with the National Disaster Medical System and was deployed to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake to identify American causalities. In 2020 she was sent to California and Georgia to assist with the monitoring of cruise ship passengers in response to Covid-19. As the situation in NYC deteriorated, she spent a month in the Medical Examiner’s office assisting with processing the deceased. Dana regularly involves students in her work and provides them with invaluable experience by working real crime scenes and on archaeological cases involving human remains. She and her students have assisted law enforcement on 23 cold cases, two-thirds of which resulted in the recovery of remains. As the result of her and her students finding the remains of a Maryland man who had been missing for over four years, the William Michael Hogan & Dr. Dana Kollmann Student Professional Development in Compassionate Forensic Science fund was established to fund ongoing cold case work with students. Dana was the recipient of an Innovation in Teaching award, a BTU investment in a partnership with law enforcement, and the 2020 Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Service.
