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DOI: 10.5744/fa.2024.0007

Copyright © 2024 University of Florida Press

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Stephen D. Ousley (Figure 1) left us too damn early. We 
were not expecting it, so the hole he left is felt, in one way or 
another, nearly every day. The many words you are about to 
read cover only a hair’s breadth of his contributions and 
only scratch the surface of his enormous influence on a wide 
variety of topics in the field and the many research methods 
used by forensic and biological anthropologists today. To 
honor Steve Ousley, his friends and colleagues, former stu-
dents, and family members produced this collection of 
papers. This Festschrift should have been while he was 
alive— to thank him, honor him, and recognize his many 
and varied contributions. But that was not the case, so here 
we present a posthumous honor to our friend (Fig. 1).

Ousley’s contributions to biological and forensic anthro-
pology, at first glance, seem to have no central theme. He 
published on a variety of issues, topics, and methods in the 
field and never seemed to limit himself to any one scholarly 
pursuit. At least not overtly. He pursued every question with 
enthusiasm and gazelle- like intensity, striving to better the 
field through the robust, quantitative analysis of data. Data, 
more than anything else, drove him. As a developing scholar, 
he was drawn to data applications; first in his position as 
manager of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s (AFIP) 

brain data base, then through his graduate student days. His 
attraction to data and what they could tell us only intensified 
as he progressed through his career.

In the 1990s, chance, luck, and fortune handed him 
something we should all hope for: a mentor with a keen sense 
of Ousley’s abilities, a mentor who had the wherewithal to 
help Ousley hone his budding interests in human skeletal 
biology, quantitative methods, and computer programming. I 
(RLJ) immediately saw Steve’s fluidity with data and what it 
could tell us. Throughout the development of the Forensic 
Anthropology Databank (FDB), FORDISC, and all of our 
subsequent collaborations, Steve was always a source of new 
ideas to further our understanding of the questions at hand.

As his journey from a budding enthusiast to a pivotal 
figure in the field unfolded, Ousley’s contributions were not 

INTRODUCTION

The Machines are Winning: Essays in Honor 
of Stephen D. Ousley (1961–2022)1

Richard Jantza ● Joseph T. Hefnerb,*

ABSTRACT: Stephen D. Ousley left us too damn early. We were not expecting it, so the hole he left is felt, in one way or another, 
nearly every day. The many words you are about to read cover only a hair’s breadth of his contributions and only scratch the surface of 
his enormous influence on a wide variety of topics in the field and the many research methods used by forensic and biological anthropol-
ogists today. To honor Steve Ousley, his friends and colleagues, former students, and family members produced this collection of papers. 
This Festschrift should have been while he was alive— to thank him, honor him, and recognize his many and varied contributions. But 
that was not the case, so here we present a posthumous honor to our friend.

KEYWORDS: forensic anthropology; FORDISC; history of science

aDepartment of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 
TN, USA

bDepartment of Anthropology, Michigan State University, 
East Lansing, MI, USA

*Correspondence to: Joseph T. Hefner, Department of Anthropology,
Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road, 355 Baker Hall, East 
Lansing, MI, 48824 USA.

E- mail: hefnerj1@msu . edu

Submitted and Accepted 17 April 2024

FIG. 1—Steven D. Ousley (left) and Richard L. Jantz (right), ca. 2006, 
collaborating, thinking, and expounding at the University of Tennessee, 
Knoxville, TN.

1. This article is part of the Festschrift for Stephen D. Ousley.



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60 The Machines are Winning

just milestones documenting his journey, but beacons for 
the entire forensic anthropological community. This evolu-
tion from the individual to the collective is encapsulated in 
this Festschrift dedicated to his work. The special issue 
stands not only as a testament to Ousley’s profound influ-
ence, but also as a platform to further his legacy by those he 
inspired and mentored. Herein the full scope of his impact 
should come into sharp focus, bridging the personal narra-
tive of a mentor and innovator with the collective endeavor 
of advancing forensic anthropology.

Each of the papers in this festschrift highlights, we hope, 
the breadth and depth of Ousley’s work. Many of the authors 
are former students of his, who have gone on to lustrous 
careers of their own. His voice, his mentoring, his nagging and 
honing, are clear in many of them. As one never willing to 
back down from a fight and always willing to take on a chal-
lenge, he encouraged, he goaded, he agitated, and he inspired.

The papers in this Festschrift honoring Steve Ousley 
are grouped into two broad categories. Several are biograph-
ical because they describe how he contributed to the authors’ 
professional development and/or Steve’s impact on the field 
of biological anthropology. Other articles are more /applied. 
These papers present scientific analyses of populations or 
statistical questions. Steve contributed to all these papers, 
either directly or indirectly, but either way they would not 
have been possible without his contribution.

Biographical Papers

Steve’s brother, sister, and wife, joined me (JTH) to frame 
Steve’s childhood and development as an anthropologist, 
exploring the roots of his lifelong love of travel, armored 
tanks, beer, and data. Born on March 10, 1961, in Chev-
erly, MD, he carved a distinguished career after earning 
degrees from the University of Maryland and the Univer-
sity of Tennessee. Steve contributed significantly to our 
field: as Laboratory Director at the Smithsonian’s Repatri-
ation Osteology Laboratory, and as a professor at Mercy-
hurst University and the University of Tennessee. Perhaps 
best known for codeveloping FORDISC, his work greatly 
impacted practice and research in forensic anthropology, 
but these days he is best remembered for his generosity, 
humor, and passion for life.

Hollinger, Dudar, and Jones discuss the importance of 
Steve’s contributions to the Smithsonian’s Repatriation 
Laboratory. It was there that some of Steve’s software pack-
ages were born, including Osteoware and 3Skull, both still 
widely used today. With literally tens of thousands of human 
remains, Repatriation required agile data management and 
data collection resources. Steve managed all the moving 
parts required for data collection, management, standardiza-
tion, and analysis, as well as outreach to descendant commu-
nities. The authors take the reader through Steve’s scientific 

contributions to the Repatriation Office and what it meant for 
repatriation in the United States more generally.

Seguchi and Best discuss Steve’s role as an educator and 
distill the basic way Steve approached scientific questions. 
Adhering to these simple but important rules is recom-
mended for researchers in biological/forensic anthropology. 
Seguchi and Best highlight Steve’s dedication to data as the 
essential element in addressing scientific questions. They 
also highlight his role in repatriating human remains to 
claimant groups, illustrating his moral responsibility. Read-
ers will come away from this paper with an appreciation of 
Steve the scientist and Steve the person.

Pawaskar and colleagues present a remarkable picture 
of Steve. This picture emerges from Steve’s 7000- mile road 
trip visiting colleagues and institutions around the country. 
Steve was attempting to implement his vision of what a 
21st century forensic anthropology should look like. The 
story is told by colleagues Steve visited during his road trip, 
sometimes incorporating his own words from email com-
munications. This paper lays out Steve’s vision of how 
forensic/biological anthropology should go from the tradi-
tional quantitative techniques of the 20th century to machine 
learning and artificial intelligence. Readers will also see 
Steve as his colleagues saw him: easy going but with a side 
of science, and occasionally a Belgian ale, but always at the 
forefront of our field. From these reminiscences we learn 
there was no better colleague.

Edgar et al. detail the impact Steve had on the evolution 
of their scientific careers. They place Steve’s contributions 
in historical context, and how Steve provided the impetus to 
move beyond traditional techniques and theory. They illus-
trate in exquisite detail what the move to virtual osteology 
would look like and the central role Steve played (and would 
have continued to play) in the transition. Readers will come 
away from this paper with a deeper understanding of the 
breadth of Steve’s abilities, his insight, and dedication to the 
advancements of our science.

Theoretical/Applied

Mintz et al. deal with the intractable problem of identifying 
individual vertebrae. While this has traditionally been 
accomplished morphologically, the authors apply a multivar-
iate statistical approach based on measurement data. The 
classification rate is not perfect, but the method provides 
probabilities unavailable using the traditional morphological 
methods. The authors also provide an importable Fordisc 
data set allowing the method to be readily implemented.

Manthey et al. address the question of differentiation of 
the frontal bone between Euro- Americans and Germans, 
two populations of European ancestry. They use geometric 
morphometry and semi- landmarks to quantify curvature of 
the frontal. The differentiation between these two European 



Jantz and Hefner 61

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derived populations emphasizes the need to distinguish pop-
ulation specificity from ancestry in forensic applications.

Hefner, Ousley, and Richardson place macromorpho-
scopic traits in the historical context of racial typology, then 
proceed to demonstrate how that is no longer the case. They 
demonstrate that macromorphoscopic traits have a role to 
play, alongside metric traits, in estimating population affin-
ity. They provide detailed description of the traits, their dis-
tribution in the world samples, and an extensive statistical 
analysis. A program performing the analyses is provided, 
along with an invitation to provide feedback.

Stull et al. specifically address the question of the rela-
tionship between morphological traits (MMS) and metric 
traits. The analysis is supported by statistical procedures 
capable of handling both data types. The analyses are couched 
in terms of mode of ossification, anatomical regions, and 
functional modules. In general, relationships between the two 
types of traits is low, emphasizing their combined use will 
lead to better estimates of population affinity.

Spiros and Nakhaeizadeh present a picture of how 
machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) will 
be integrated into forensic decision- making. They illustrate 
the potential ML and AI have for forensic applications well 
beyond estimation of population affinity or sex, and the 
increased interaction between forensic anthropological res-
earchers and other disciplines such as computer science and 
ethics. Most importantly, they demonstrate why ML and AI 
should be used to enhance human decision- making, rather 
than replace it.

Konigsberg and Frankenberg get into a highly technical 
consideration of the F test typicality probabilities as calculated 
by Fordisc. Their point of departure is the ongoing discussion 
the authors were having with Steve concerning how the F typ-
icalities should be calculated. They argue that Fordisc’s calcu-
lations are incorrect and present the proper calculation, which 
can hopefully be included in the next version of Fordisc 4.0. 
Readers will come away with an appreciation of Steve’s com-
mand of complex issues and his love of a good argument.

Milner et al. take up the intractable question of age esti-
mation, especially in older adults. They compare results 
from transition analysis based on expanded age markers, 
known as TA3, to maximum likelihood methods based on an 
expanded, international data set. The authors emphasize 
Steve’s commitment to all areas of the project, from trait 
identification to data acquisition to analysis. The authors 
emphasize that there is still progress required to improve age 
estimation, and unfortunately Steve will not be part of it.

Jantz et al. round out the theoretical and applied papers 
in an analysis of African migrants, who died in a tragic 2015 
shipwreck off the coast of Libya. Analyzing over 300 cra-
nia, the authors explore cranial morphometrics in light of 
African cranial variation. Their robust and intriguing analy-
sis of those data allowed a thorough reconstruction of cranial 
morphology and ship demographic structure.

Finally, we round out this Festschrift with a select bibli-
ography, outlining not only Steve’s scholarly contributions, 
but also his data collection trips, student mentoring, and 
more generalized contributions to the field of forensic 
anthropology. Steve’s work left an indelible mark on the 
intersection between biological anthropology and statistical 
approaches to the study of human variation and has enriched 
our understanding of population affinity estimation. With a 
career characterized by rigor, innovation, and a passion for 
discovery, his insights will remain a constant part of our 
work for the long term.

Within this collection of papers, memories, and research 
endeavors lies a testament to the profound and enduring 
influence of Steven D. Ousley, PhD. With heartfelt affection 
and our deepest appreciation, we dedicate this compilation to 
his memory. Steve, your absence is keenly felt, and your 
contributions continue to resonate within our scientific com-
munity. You are missed. Robot Roll Call (Fig. 2).

Reference

Ousley SD, Jantz RL, Hefner, JT (2018). From Blumenbach to 
Howells: The slow, painful emergence of theory through 
forensic race estimation. Forensic Anthropology: Theoretical 
Framework and Scientific Basis Wiley:2018:67– 97).

FIG. 2—Robot painting by Gudrun Richter, Steve’s wife.


