[385] MTSU's Fire Hosts 'Dr. Bones' Kathy Reichs For Free April 14 Talk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 24, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or lrollins@mtsu.edu

MTSU’s FIRE HOSTS ‘DR. BONES’ KATHY REICHS FOR FREE APRIL 14 TALK
Forensic Anthropologist & Bestselling Author Goes ‘From Crime Lab to Crime Fiction’

(MURFREESBORO)—Dr. Kathy Reichs, producer of the Fox-TV series known as “Bones,” which is based on her work and related novels, will visit MTSU as the featured speaker of the Legends in Forensic Science Lectureship.
Sponsored by for the university’s Forensic Institute for Research and Education, the lecture series was designed to bring internationally known lecturers in the world of forensic science to MTSU each fall and spring semester, said Dr. Hugh Berryman, FIRE director.
Known as “Dr. Bones,” Reichs will deliver a 7 p.m. April 14 talk titled “From Crime Lab to Crime Fiction” in Murphy Center. The event is free and open to the public.
One of only 87 forensic anthropologists currently certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Reichs has long served as a consultant to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina and continues to do so for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec.
Now dividing her time between Charlotte, N.C., and Montreal, Quebec, Reichs’ career experience is diverse. From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as a forensic anthropologist she has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerizing forensic thrillers.
Reichs’ first novel, Déjà Dead, catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her other Temperance Brennan novels include Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones, Break No Bones, Bones to Ashes, Devil Bones and 206 Bones, the later of which was published in August 2009.
A native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern University, Reichs currently serves as a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. Previously, she served on the board of directors and as vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and currently is a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada.
From the field to the printed page and TV screen, Reichs boasts an impressive résumé that includes traveling to Rwanda to testify at the U.N. Tribunal on Genocide, helping exhume a mass grave in Guatemala and aiding in the identification of war dead from World War II, Korea and Southeast Asia.
Event organizers said Reichs will sign books following her lecture. Copies of her titles will be available for sale in the campus-based Phillips Bookstore, located in Keathley University Center, prior to her April 14 talk.
In addition to FIRE, Reichs’ campus visit was made possible by sponsorship from the MTSU Distinguished Lecturer Committee, the College of Liberal Arts, the Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies and Phillips Bookstore. For more information on the April 14 lecture, please contact FIRE by calling 615-494-7713.
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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.