Spartan Daily

Lecturer tells students how to get a head in forensics at SJSU

Brittany Patterson, Spartan Daily

A skull casting and a finished bust of an unidentified dead man currently under investigation were the focus of a lecture on facial reconstruction and human face anatomy presented by Gloria Nusse, a San Francisco State lecturer and forensic facial reconstruction specialist in Clark Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

The bust, made by lecturer Gloria Nusse from San Francisco State University, was going to be given to the San Francisco Police Department in hopes that it will be used to help identify who that man was.

Nusse gave a lecture about the process of facial reconstruction, which was one of her lines of work.

She showed the history of early facial reconstruction using a slideshow about how early facial reconstruction was used with mud and porcelain being some of the earliest materials used.

"Sometimes real hair was used, when they could use it and they would attach it to the mud death masks," Nusse said.

She said some of the basic ways of reconstructing the face were to look for details on the skull, such as nose ridges, margins and teeth.

Skulls of different ancestries such as caucasoid, negroid or mongoloid, each have their own class of categories to how a skull may develop causing different facial tissues to form on each skull, she said.

"The first criminalistic use of facial reconstruction occurred in 1916 in New York, when a bust was made of a missing woman, whom was immediately identified right away by her family," Nusse said.

It wasn't until Milton Krogman in a method in 1948 to measure tissue depth which allowed him to more accurately gauge what the thickness and depth of skin would be on all the separate parts to a skull.

Tony Ma, a senior justice studies major, said he thought it was interesting that facial reconstruction was more than one field.

"It’s osteology, it’s forensics, it’s histology, all incorporated into one science, which takes years and years of dedication and education to be at this point where you can help society and help victims," Ma said.

Nusse said recent advances in technology has allowed facial reconstruction to be easier.

"CAT scans and ultrasound allow us to perform tests on more subjects than before," she said. "Before it wasn't as easy analyze facial structures on children because their bones aren't as developed or some of the skull was too smooth, but now with this technology we have access to this information."

Nusse said she has worked on reconstructing faces for many cases before, which on average takes anywhere from 30 to 50 hours per bust and sometimes means having to make one with only a fraction of a skull.

"There was a girl who was beaten pretty bad one time," she said. "We only had a top quarter of her skull, the mandibles were completely gone, but using the techniques and charts that I had, I've tried to accurately recreate what I could. When I don't have everything, I can only make averages based on what I have."

Courtney Streeter, a senior forensic chemistry major, said she thought it was nice to see another option for forensic science students.

"The way she reconstructs skulls is interesting, along with her method of combining data sheets for facial recognition," Streeter said.

Nusse said she will sometimes work on multiple facial reconstructions, but will always cover all the ones she is not currently working on.

"These are important because for some people it's their last shot in trying to finally identify someone and I don't want to mix up," she said. "I take my work seriously and I know that all the people who I am facially reconstructing have loved ones out there wanting to know what happened to these people."

The help of DNA testing has helped give more pieces to Nusse when she tries to reconstruct a face, she said.

She said she once made a bust of a little girl, and afterward had to remake it when DNA testing found out the victim was a boy.

"What’s interesting is that you start sometimes with the skull, and from there, based on the muscles and the ancestry, you go from there and make a composite, but at the same time it’s a hit or miss," Ma said. "Sometimes you need to break it down and start over whether you worked on it for 10 hours or 100 hours, you need to be dedicated enough to know that you are presenting to public may not be a hit so you need to go back to the drawing board and redo it all again."

Nusse recommends if students get into the field of facial reconstruction, that will find there are lines of work available.

"There is not much call for this kind of work," she said. "Let’s not hope for it, because it means there’s a lot of people dying who are unidentified, and it’s one of those things where secretly on the inside you wish there wasn’t a call for it despite how interesting it may be."