Dr. Moore’s research interests include skeletal biology, paleopathology, functional morphology, biomechanics, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, & human rights. She has published a textbook, 21 articles/chapters (10 peer-reviewed), and presented 39 papers at professional conferences in the US and abroad. She published articles in Forensic Sciences International, the Journal of Forensic Sciences, the Journal of Forensic Identification, co-authored a textbook with Elsevier/Academic Press entitled: Research Methods in Human Skeletal Biology, and co-edited a special edition of Forensic Science International: Synergy.

Some of her strengths stem from  extensive work in human anatomy and biomechanics, which provides a bridge between research in biocultural evolutionary theory and applied anthropological research with modern populations.

Dr. Moore’s forensic casework in Detroit has inspired one area of current research on trauma and the evidence of poverty on the skeleton. She wrote a peer reviewed chapter on the “Osteology of Poverty in Detroit” in an edited volume entitled: Towards the Margins: Accounting for the Marginalized in Forensic Anthropology. She was also invited to coauthor a chapter on differentiating skeletal trauma in burned remains, which is a common theme of forensic casework in Detroit.

A second research agenda on sexual polymorphism and sex estimation was inspired by the historic case of the Revolutionary War general, Casimir Pulaski. Dr. Moore had the opportunity to reanalyze these historic remains and submit bone samples for DNA. The results were very surprising, and the case was featured in a Smithsonian Channel episode: The General was Female? This research led her down a path of exploring diversity in biological sex and the implications for sex estimation from the skeleton. She is currently collaborating with students to analyze pelvic dimensions from CT scans and radiographs to explore reasons for intermediate pelvic dimensions. Variation in hormone levels that can leave traces on the skeleton can also be the result of obesity and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). She received training to operate a DEXA scanner and collaborated with a student to look at systemic bone density increases in women with PCOS resulting from higher androgen levels. Obesity in juvenile males can also cause high estrogen levels and feminization of the male pelvis. This research stems from her previous research on the effects of obesity on the skeleton and my dissertation on Body Mass Estimation from the Human Skeleton, which was funded through the National Institute of Justice.

The third research agenda is bioarchaeology research of early medieval skeletons in northern France and late Roman and early Byzantine remains from southern Turkey. Both these international projects are opportunities to train students in bioarchaeological excavation, provide exposure to human variation in general and variation in growth and development, as well as exposure to diverse pathology. Students get to practice osteological identification from small bone fragments and learn how to analyze commingled and cremated remains. She received funding in 2014 for bioarchaeology research in northern France by the Nestlé Foundation to explore secular change in the shape of the mandible using the medieval skeletal collection of approximately 2000 individuals. She successfully led five separate field excursions and ran a field school in 2014 with thirteen students to study this skeletal collection. The work in France is on hiatus while the remains are moved to their permanent location. In the interim, she joined the well-established research project and field school at Antiochia ad Cragum in Turkey, run through the University of Nebraska. Her role there is to lead the excavations of the looted tombs at the necropolis and analyze human skeletal remains from around the site. An edited volume is currently in preparation with Oxbow Books in which she authored a chapter on the human remains, which is currently under revisions.