[346] MTSU Prof Named Recipient of 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award in Forensics

For Release: March 9, 2011
Contact: Tom Tozer, 615-898-2919

MTSU PROF NAMED RECIPIENT OF 2012 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN FORENSICS
MURFREESBORO—Dr. Hugh Berryman, professor of sociology and anthropology and director of the Forensic Institute for Research and Education at Middle Tennessee State University, recently learned that he will receive the 2012 T. Dale Stewart Award for lifetime achievement in physical anthropology from the American Academy for Forensic Sciences.
The T. Dale Stewart Award, given annually to a single recipient, is the highest honor bestowed upon a forensic anthropologist in the United States. The formal award presentation will be made at the AAFS annual meeting next February in Atlanta.
“During the (February 2011) business meeting (in Chicago), they started reading a list of publications and so on, and the more I listened, the more I began to think it sounded like me,” said Berryman, who came to MTSU to serve as FIRE director when the institute was established in 2006.
“What popped into my mind was that quote during the Dan Quayle debate. I thought to myself, ‘T. Dale Stewart …? Berryman, you are no T. Dale Stewart. What am I doing winning this?’”
Stewart, considered a founder of modern forensic anthropology, was a physical anthropologist and authority on human bones who worked with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History for more than 60 years. He has been praised for his attention to detail and prodigious career productivity.
Several of Berryman’s MTSU students accompanied him to Chicago. A previous student, Alicja Kutyla, who is now working on her doctorate at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, presented a paper at the conference on research that she and Berryman conducted at MTSU.
“Alicja was at the back of the room and came up afterward,” Berryman said. “It was just great. I got a standing ovation and everything. It’s one of those things that you will always remember—and it was a surprise.”
In addition to teaching and serving as director of FIRE, Berryman sits on the advisory board of The Forensic Teacher Magazine. Prior to coming to MTSU, he was consultant to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. Berryman is certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is an AAFS Fellow as well as a Fellow in the American Association of Physical Anthropology.
He received his Bachelor of Science (with honors), Master of Arts and doctoral degrees in anthropology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Berryman has written numerous publications, received several awards and honors and conducted many lectures and workshops during his career.

ATTENTION, MEDIA: For jpeg photos of Dr. Hugh Berryman contact Tom Tozer, in the MTSU Office of News and Media Relations at 615-898-5131 or ttozer@mtsu.edu
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Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. Recently, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.