Cheryl A. Johnston, Ph.D. is a board certified forensic anthropologist and a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. She earned her doctoral degree at the Ohio State University in 2002 and is a lecturer in the Center for Life Sciences Education at OSU. In 2005 she joined the faculty at Western Carolina University where she designed and carried out the human decomposition research program at the Forensic Osteology Research Station (FOREST) an outdoor human decomposition facility. She is a former director of the FOREST and the Western Carolina Human Identification Laboratory (WCHIL). Dr. Johnston has worked as a consultant in forensic anthropology since 1991 for numerous agencies including the Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Macon, and Clay County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Departments, The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and numerous Ohio Coroners’ and Sheriffs’ Offices.  Her major interests in forensic anthropology are human decomposition and taphonomic processes, and methods of field location and recovery of human remains.