Dr. William R. Belcher

Dr. William R. Belcher is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States. He is a forensic anthropologist and archaeologist, but also an environmental archaeologist with a speciality in animal bones from archaeological sites-zooarchaeology. He is interested in understanding the application of forensic anthropological methods to the identification of human remains. As the Coordinator for the Graduate Certificate in Forensic Anthropology, he welcomes students at the undergraduate and graduate level to learn the identification techniques and processes as a service-based discipline as UNL. He has worked in two disparate areas of research, one as an environmental archaeologist and the other as a forensic anthropologist/archaeologist. His environmental archaeology program focuses on the analysis of ancient (3rd and 4th millennium BCE) fish remains and their modern counterparts. This will allow them to examine significant changes in fishing, butchery, ancient trade, as well as climate change. After retiring from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, his primary focus at UNL is to provide opportunities to learn and conduct research related to the identification of missing US service members in conjunction with the Scientific Analysis Directorate Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, NE.