© 2024 WNMU-FM
Upper Great Lakes News, Music, and Arts & Culture
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

NMU FROST facility coming together

MARQUETTE, MI--   Progress is being made on the world’s first cold-climate body farm in Marquette. 

Dr. Jane Wankmiller is the director of Northern Michigan University’s Forensic Research Outdoor Station—or FROST. She says it’s actually two facilities, comprising a one-acre outdoor research area and an indoor lab. Wankmiller says the outdoor facility will likely be prepared by the end of October, but it won’t be operational until the lab is complete early next year.

She notes FROST won’t function as a “potter’s field.”

“The people whose remains we use for the research out at the site will be specifically donated to this program by either the people themselves or their next of kin,” she says. “It’s not something that’s going to be a substitute for unclaimed or unidentified remains.” 

Wankmiller says they’ll likely start by getting baseline data on the area’s freeze/thaw cycle and how it affects decomposition. She says the specimens will be used to solve questions often encountered by law enforcement.

“We have a number of projects lined up that really stem from real-life police cases and things that have been observed, and questions have arisen as to how this came into being,” she says.

Wankmiller says FROST will fill gaps in forensic knowledge and help train law enforcement.

She says NMU is the perfect place for the facility, as the university is very forward-thinking and student-research-driven. 

Nicole was born near Detroit but has lived in the U.P. most of her life. She graduated from Marquette Senior High School and attended Michigan State and Northern Michigan Universities, graduating from NMU in 1993 with a degree in English.
Related Content