Current Exhumations

In 2019, the Mississippi Legislature passed legislation that allows UMMC to proceed with exhumation and relocation of the remains on the UMMC campus. In 2021, the Legislature allocated $3.7 million in funding to support exhumation efforts.

Archaeological Crew

Dr. Jennifer Mack, Lead Bioarchaeologist

Dr. Jennifer Mack, a native of Pensacola, Florida, is the Lead Bioarchaeologist of UMMC's Asylum Hill Project. After completing a BA at Emory University, she spent several years working for private archaeology firms and state agencies, and she received osteological training at the University of West Florida before obtaining a PhD from the University of Exeter. She has been published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology and has co-authored two books, Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery: Excavating a Nineteenth-century Burial Ground in a Twenty-first-century City (University of Iowa Press, 2015) and In Praise of Small Things: Death and Life at the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Burial of Bolores, Portugal (British Archaeological Reports International Series, 2015). Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery was selected for the James Deetz book award by the Society for Historical Archaeology in 2017.

Her co-edited volume, Applied Bioarchaeology: Making an Impact, (Springer Nature, 2025) features a chapter about the Asylum Hill Project’s collaboration with the Mississippi Museum of Art to raise awareness and promote conversations about mental health today.

Dr. Mack has a particular interest in institutional cemeteries and the diverse populations represented within their grounds. Past research projects include the Volusia County Poor Farm Graveyard in Florida and the Johnson County Poor Farm and Asylum Cemetery in Iowa.

Gabby Lofland, Crew Chief

Gabby is originally from Delaware but spent most of her childhood in Albania and the surrounding Balkan countries. Immersed in their rich history and burgeoning archaeology, her own interest in the discipline was sparked. Upon returning to the U.S., she earned a BA in English literature and then later a BA in anthropology at UWF in Pensacola, FL with a focus in bioarchaeology and forensics. After gaining experience in CRM, she broke ground with the Asylum Hill excavation team in 2022 and became Crew Chief in 2024.

In 2024, Gabby began an independent research project looking at dental remains from the site, using dental morphological analysis to estimate ancestry and examining the overall dental health of patients at the asylum. She presented preliminary findings at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in 2025, and she looks forward to continuing that research. She also hopes to bring her stained glass art to the project by recreating the coffin viewing panes into colorful memorial pieces.

Stacia Yoakam, Field Technician/Lab Manager

Stacia, a graduate of the University of Sheffield (M.A. in Archaeology, 2019) and of The Ohio State University (B.S. in Anthropological Sciences and a B.A. in Classics, 2016), has been with the project since the beginning of excavations in the fall of 2022. Trained in bioarchaeological analysis and osteology, she has worked with populations both ancient and historic, ranging from Roman Citizens to 1950's Americans. With an interest in osteology, pathology, and mortuary analysis, she has focused her efforts, outside of normal daily excavation, towards studying a geographical ‘block’ of the hospital cemetery. By combining evidence gathered from the osteological, mortuary, and historical data of this small portion of the cemetery, she has been able to estimate the time period of burial for this region and has identified changing burial practices throughout its usage. Additionally, she has analyzed and described the skeletal remains for evidence of age, sex, and ancestry.

Emily Wicke, Field Technician

Emily is one of the original Asylum Hill crew members. A native of Pensacola, she has worked as an archaeological field technician at locations across North America since 2002.

An artist and craftswoman, as well as an archaeologist, she makes drawings/paintings with mixed media and has a daily practice of textile production, which includes spinning fiber, dyeing yarn, knitting, and weaving on historic counterbalance looms. She brings this expertise to the Asylum Hill Project in her analysis of small scraps of textiles preserved in the graves. In 2024, she partnered with the Mississippi Museum of Art to create a community-involved art project to honor the experience of the Asylum patients. The project, Weaving Together, was featured alongside the monumental narrative painting, What Became of Dr. Smith, by Noah Saterstrom.

Bryce Sermons, Field Technician

Bryce Sermons is originally from Georgia and received his BA in Anthropology from Georgia Southern University in 2022. Since 2022, he has worked as an archaeological field technician across the southeastern U.S. as well as in California and Iowa. During this time, he gained experience in all phases of archaeological excavation across historic, precontact, and mortuary contexts. Bryce joined the excavation crew in 2024. Since joining the project, he has been working in collaboration with the Massilani Lab of the Yale School of Medicine to develop protocols for the recovery of ancient human DNA from sediment samples at the site.

Katherine Dunning, Field Technician

Katherine grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, and completed bachelor's degrees in History and English Literature at Indiana University. She moved with her fiancé to Florida in 2015 and was accepted into the Applied Anthropology master's program at the University of South Florida. There, she was trained in bioarchaeology and osteology, and researched isotopic and biomolecular analysis methods for bioarchaeological materials. Her thesis focused on the isotopic profiles of bubonic plague victims buried on the quarantine islands of Venice, Italy. She additionally completed a graduate certificate in bioinformatics, applying it to her work in proteomic analyses of bioarchaeological samples. Prior to joining the Asylum Hill Project, she worked in CRM, gaining experience with the different phases of archaeological work and historical cemetery excavation. She is delighted to now be a part of the Asylum Hill Project and the important work being done at this site.

Melanie (Mel) Hasey, Field Technician

Melanie (Mel) Hasey had a rather long and winding road into archaeology. While studying music at her local community college, she came across the area of study called ethnomusicology and became very interested in the reason why humans make music. After receiving her associate’s degree in music Mel planned to study ethnomusicology at a four-year institution. However, for financial reasons she entered the workforce instead, doing a plethora of jobs including working at a ranch for troubled youth, being a seamstress, office administrative work, professional cleaning, and working for Starbucks. In 2019, through the Starbucks College Achievement Program, Mel had the chance to return to school, and she graduated in 2021 from Arizona State University with a BS in Anthropology. Having developed an interest in bioarchaeology, Mel was drawn to the Asylum Hill field school for the way the project prioritized descendant-driven research and involvement. After attending the field school, she was invited to return as an intern the following summer and was offered a position on the crew in July 2025.

Links to news coverage

2026 WLBT Cast Iron Casket

2025 WAPT Story on the Asylum Hill Project

2024 WJTV Unearthing Artifacts

2023 WLBT Story on Asylum Hill Progress

2022 Wayne County Visit

2021 PBS Mysteries of Mental Illness