While earning her PhD in biological anthropology, Caroline Znachko has researched how stress during early life can be seen in the skeleton and genetic markers.
Caroline Znachko first learned that skeletons can reveal information about people’s lives when she was a child visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she has been advancing the field of biological anthropology to unlock more information from bones and DNA.
Fascinated by the stories that bodies can tell, Znachko has explored biomarkers of childhood stress, through research with the UTK Donated Skeletal Collection for her doctoral dissertation.
“My results suggest that exposures to stress during early life stages in Appalachia are impacting growth to the point that they could be influencing how one’s body is programmed during development, both at the epigenetic and the skeletal levels. This altered physiology might be contributing to the increased disease risk that we see later on in adulthood,” she said, citing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity that often are considered the result of adult lifestyle choices.
Two people who experience the same stress event can have different physiological reactions. Understanding the development of this underlying variation, and its influence on risk of illness and death, is essential to improving health across generations, making lives better.
“Caroline is an exemplary researcher whose work is always foregrounded by a strong theoretical foundation and great care for the impact of her results on society,” said Professor Mark Hubbe, head of UT’s Department of Anthropology. “Her research sheds light on how the specific social, economic, and environmental issues facing Appalachians, such as an extractive economy, rural poverty, mining-specific illnesses and health legacies, and barriers to healthcare, become embodied over their lifespan.”
Znachko is graduating in spring 2026 as a Volunteer of Distinction, an honor that celebrates her academic excellence, community engagement, outstanding teaching, and impactful research. She also is the recipient of the anthropology department’s Michael H. Logan Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate Award.
She published two peer-reviewed articles, presented papers at more than a dozen conferences, and participated in research both at UT and in other states.
“Caroline really distinguished herself by taking advantage of all of the opportunities offered to graduate students by the department, the college, and the Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC) at UT,” said Chancellor’s Professor Dawnie Wolfe Steadman, director emeritus of the FAC and Znachko’s advisor. “She engaged in multiple multidisciplinary research projects, participated in the Three Minute Thesis competition, and worked her way to become a primary analyst on forensic cases. In fact, just after her (thesis) defense in April, she was the FAC team leader in a state and federal multi-agency effort to find missing children in Western Tennessee. She exemplifies engagement during her graduate career.”
“She is engaged and collaborative, bringing an anthropological perspective to all of her research interactions,” Hubbe said.
In the classroom, undergraduates have given her excellent teaching evaluations. “Caroline inspires UT students with her enthusiasm for anthropology,” he said.
Scholarship as Service
As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Znachko interned with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. “When I was in Arizona, and then later at Texas State University for my master’s, I focused on researching unidentified migrant decedents at the border and trying to understand how parts of their skeleton could reflect lived experiences, and maybe how we could use that information to improve our identification efforts of them,” she said, part of the work to repatriate the remains to their families.
“I wanted to try to take my passion for human biology and forensics and do some good with it, and that led me down the specific research path that I’m focused on,” Znachko said.
She was drawn to UT by its leading Forensic Anthropology Center, the ability to work with several board-certified forensic anthropologists, the focus on forensic humanitarianism, and the Molecular Anthropology Laboratories.
“I knew that I would be able to not only get this applied experience at the Forensic Anthropology Center and work with people asking similar research questions, but I would be able to do this type of research in-house and get a lot of professional experience here,” she said.
Znachko was eager to work with Steadman, whose research includes forensic anthropology, bioarcheology, and paleopathology.
“She has pushed me to be a better, more rigorous, and critical scientist and researcher,” Znachko said. “I feel really confident leaving here that I am an independent thinker who’s able to create my own projects, lead research teams, and collaborate with other researchers, and I really appreciate her for challenging me to strive for excellence.”
She also credits the FAC senior staff members who mentored her in the skills to be a forensic anthropologist. “All of them are phenomenal scientists and have a lot of experience in the real world that in turn better prepares students,” Znachko said, calling Professor Amy Mundorf and FAC Director Giovanna Vidoli her “mama hens.”
“They took me under their wing, even though they’re not my advisor or on my committee, and had a lot of patience and care with raising me,” she said. “All of the senior staff have been fantastic mentors.”
Intake to Investigation
As a graduate student, Znachko immersed herself in every aspect of work at the FAC, from picking up body donations from hospitals and morgues to learning how to excavate a burial site and serving as the primary analyst on forensic cases, developing a portfolio of experiences for when she sits for board exams.
“I’ve now trained TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) agents, FBI, and forensic practitioners from the US and Mexico, search and recovery teams from Snohomish, Washington, and also undergraduate students who are just starting off and seeing if this is for them,” Znachko said.
She assisted Vidoli and Teaching Professor Joanne Devlin on work to differentiate between thermal damage and trauma on human skeletal remains. As part of that work, Znachko wondered how burned a fragment must be before it becomes impossible to differentiate human and non-human bones.
Previously, the Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) technique had been used to examine the molecular makeup of bones to distinguish among other animals. “Our team, including colleagues from the Zooarchaeology Lab, are using this method to see if we can differentiate between burned human and non-human bones,” Znachko said. “This would be really important in forensic casework. It’s a lot less expensive than DNA, and so it’s a helpful triage method.”
Research Beyond UT
Znachko has received funding for her work at UT through a Graduate Student Research Award and a Student-Faculty Research Award.
With support from the FAC’s William M. Bass Endowment, she completed a month-long visiting scientist position with New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner. “I wanted more experience in a metropolitan city,” Znachko said.
In New York she shadowed death investigators and forensic anthropologists from the body recovery scene to the autopsy. In addition, she explored potential research questions by examining case files and what they may reveal that could help with forensic work.
As part of a research project that UT professors have with an anthropology professor at Pennsylvania State University, Znachko interned for a month there to help develop a method for assessing DNA methylation, which changes gene expression, from bone.
“One of the applications that I’ve started focusing on is how these early life experiences that I’ve documented on the bone and in the epigenome might be influencing the accuracy of our age estimation methods used in forensic anthropology,” said Znachko, who presented some of her data at the American Association of Forensic Sciences annual conference in 2025.
Supporting Students and Community
Over the past year Znachko has worked with UT’s Appalachian Justice Research Center, collaborating on transdisciplinary research involving topics including public health and law. For a community project with Hellbender Harm Reduction that assessed the availability of medication to assist pregnant women in recovery, she led a team of master’s and undergraduate students conducting the statistical analysis.
As an anthropology graduate student at UT, Znachko has participated in outreach to elementary schools, talked to retirees in Tellico Village, and led a summer camp for high schoolers with hands-on lessons in forensic anthropology.
“It’s really interesting talking to different audiences and dispelling misconceptions about what the field is and what the science can do, and particularly for younger individuals and students, introducing them to something they can study,” she said.
Znachko also mentored an undergraduate student who assisted on her dissertation work. Znachko had trained her how to identify samples in the UTK Donated Skeletal Collection that meet criteria for her dissertation. The undergraduate explored how a tooth enamel defect may be related to socioeconomic status and delivered a presentation at UT’s Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EURēCA).
“She had specific research questions, and I helped her find the tools to make it happen,” Znachko said. When she realized the younger student found statistical methods intimidating, it reminded Znachko of her own journey, and she demonstrated how to approach the work in a different and fun way.
“I realized that through middle school, high school, and even college, I had embodied this misconception that girls can’t do math, which is silly,” Znachko said. “It wasn’t until my PhD that I really faced that head-on and took some classes that I was intimidated by—statistics, bioinformatics, biometry—and I realized I was actually pretty good at it, and it was fun. I thought back to all my previous mentors who saw a really enthusiastic young girl and believed in me and helped me get to where I am. I find it rewarding to do the same.”
Znachko will build on the epigenetic research from her dissertation in her next position as a postdoctoral research associate at Purdue University. She’ll be the only anthropologist working in a lab with an interdisciplinary team examining the connection between early life experiences, dental development, and mental health outcomes later on.
“Baby teeth develop at the same time as your brain, so stress markers on baby teeth could be potential biomarkers to predict the risk of mental illness later on in life, like depression and anxiety,” she explained.
As she transitions from academic life to her professional career, Znachko will continue in the Volunteer spirit, aiming to make life and lives better.
by Amy Beth Miller