Kristina Killgrove (born March 10, 1977) is an American
bioarchaeologist, science communicator, and author who primarily covers anthropology and archaeology news and engages in research on ancient Roman skeletons. She is a regular contributor to Live Science
and previously to ''
Mental Floss
''Mental Floss'' (stylized as ''mental_floss'') is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss ...
,'' ''
Science Uncovered,'' and ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
''. From 2012 to 2018, she was faculty in anthropology at the
University of West Florida
The University of West Florida (West Florida or UWF) is a public university in Pensacola, Florida. Established in 1963 as part of the State University System of Florida, the university sits on the third largest campus in the State University Sys ...
and she has maintained an affiliation as a research scholar at the
Ronin Institute
The Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship, commonly called just the Ronin Institute, is an independent scholarly research institute located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States. The institute is dedicated to multidisciplinary study of sci ...
since 2011. She is currently affiliated with the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
.
Biography
Killgrove grew up in
Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
, Virginia, where her father was employed as an engineer for the
National Ground Intelligence Center
The National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) is part of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command. The NGIC provides scientific and technical intelligence (S&T) and general military intelligence (GMI) on foreign ground forces i ...
and her mother was a nurse. She has one brother. She is a graduate of
Albemarle High School and the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
, earning a B.A. with a double major in classical archaeology and Latin.
Killgrove attended
East Carolina University and earned an M.A. in anthropology, then attended the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
, where she earned an M.A. in classical archaeology and a PhD in anthropology.
She has taught college courses at the University of West Florida,
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
, UNC Chapel Hill,
SUNY Cortland
The State University of New York College at Cortland (SUNY Cortland or Cortland State College) is a public college in Cortland, New York. It was founded in 1868 and is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.
History
The State Un ...
, and
Durham Technical Community College.
Killgrove is married to Patrick Reynolds, a
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continu ...
principal engineer and th
Oracle of Bacon they have two children. In 2019, she resigned her position as chair of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) media relations committee to protest SAA's failure to eject an archaeologist accused of sexual harassment from their annual conference.
Research projects
Killgrove's first research project for her dissertation focused on skeletons from two cemeteries in Imperial-era Rome. This work included palaeodietary reconstruction as well as the first strontium isotope study of human migration in the Italian peninsula. From 2010 to 2017, Killgrove worked on the human skeletal material recovered from the site of
Gabii
Gabii was an ancient city of Latium, located due east of Rome along the Via Praenestina, which was in early times known as the ''Via Gabina''.
It was on the south-eastern perimeter of an extinct volcanic crater lake, approximately circular ...
, under the aegis of a project headed by
Nicola Terrenato
Nicola Terrenato (born October 22, 1963) is an Italian scholar of ancient Italy.
Terrenato was born in Rome.
A Classical archaeologist teaching in thInterdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology(IPCAA) at the University of Michigan ...
. Since 2017, she has led a team working at the Vesuvian site of
Oplontis
Oplontis is an ancient Roman archaeological site located in the town of Torre Annunziata, south of Naples in the Campania region of southern Italy. The excavated site comprises two Roman villas, the best-known of which is Villa A, the so-called ...
.
SciComm
Killgrove has written a blog, Powered by Osteons, since 2007. In 2013, she contributed to the 'Ask A Scientist' column of the short-lived British pop-sci magazine ''Science Uncovered''. From 2015 to 2020, she was a contributor at ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'', covering archaeology and anthropology news in her own column. In 2016, she began contributing occasional essays for ''
Mental Floss
''Mental Floss'' (stylized as ''mental_floss'') is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss ...
'' and in 2022 she started writing for
Live Science.
Killgrove has won two awards for her science communication.
She has also provided expert commentary for numerous media outlets, including
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''.
* Killgrove, K., and R. Tykot. 2018. Diet and collapse: a stable isotope study of Imperial-era Gabii (1st–3rd c AD). ''Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.'' doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.05.054.
* Killgrove K. and J. Montgomery. 2016. All roads lead to Rome: exploring human migration to the Eternal City through biochemistry of skeletons from two Imperial-era sites (1st–3rd c AD). ''PLOS ONE'' 11(2): e0147585. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147585.
* Meyers Emery, K., and K. Killgrove. 2015. Bones, bodies, and blogs: outreach and engagement in bioarchaeology. ''Internet Archaeology'' 39. doi: 10.11141/ia.39.5.
* Killgrove, K. 2013. Biohistory of the Roman Republic: the potential of isotope analysis of human skeletal remains. ''Post-Classical Archaeologies'' 3:41–62.
* Killgrove, K., and R. Tykot. 2013. Food for Rome: a stable isotope investigation of diet in the Imperial period (1st–3rd centuries AD). ''Journal of Anthropological Archaeology'' 32(1):28–38. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2012.08.002.
* Montgomery, J., J. Evans, S. Chenery, V. Pashley, K. Killgrove. 2010. "Gleaming, white and deadly": lead exposure and geographic origins in the Roman period. In ''Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire'', H. Eckardt ed. Journal of Roman Archaeology supplement 78, Chapter 11, pp. 199–226.