Francisca Cardoso

Francisca Alves Cardoso is a research fellow at CRIA – Centre for Research in Anthropology. She has worked on issues related to Portuguese Human Identified Skeletal Collections (HISC) since 2014, aiming to build a bridge between science and society on the importance of HISC, whilst considering their scientific value, social and cultural, as well as ethical implications. To continue this research she was recently awarded a newly funded project on – Life After Death: Rethinking Human Remains and Human Osteological Collections as Cultural Heritage and Biobanks (2020.01014.CEECIND / funded by FCT/Portugal). She is also the coordinator of LABOH – CRIA’s Laboratory of Biological Anthropology and Human Osteology, and PI of the exploratory project – BONEMATTERS. This explores skeletal biology from a theoretical and practical approach. Its focus is on how skeletal biology is used to comprehend and reconstruct human past health and wealth, including inferring social and cultural constructs; and it highlights the various discourses associated with the study/use of skeletal biology and human skeletonized remains in science, technology and humanities and its impact in society. She encourages the use of new technologies and approaches to human biology, both past and present, and humans and environment interface. Recently, she has incorporated Social Media, Scientometrics and Big Data Analysis, applied to Biological Anthropology and Human Osteological analysis.