Be a part of the inaugural Recovery Innovation Technology Summit (RITS 2023), a diverse assembly of academics, independent scholars, and non-profit recovery and identification groups devoted to researching cold cases and innovating technologies that contribute to the recovery of our missing. The summit, organized and hosted by the UW MIA Recovery and Identification Project, will create a networking opportunity for interdisciplinary groups and scholars who do similar work. The summit will welcome participation from researchers and individuals, who focus on the recovery of missing individuals.
Your participation will support the efforts to build and grow this network of experts in the hopes of creating collaborations that will enhance the recovery of missing individuals.
Dr. Sarah Wagner, Keynote Speaker
Sarah Wagner is a Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University. She is the author of To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebrenica’s Missing (2008) and What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War (2019), winner of the 2020 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing. She is also co-author of Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide (2014) and co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of the Anthropology of Death (forthcoming). Funded by the National Science Foundation, National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, her research focuses on post-conflict societies, memory, forensic science applied in the wake of war, and, most recently, on COVID-19 death and mourning. In addition to her scholarly publications, she has written opinion editorials and blog posts for the Washington Post, The Hill, Baltimore Sun, and LA Times.
Additional Presenters and Panel Members
Ella Axelrod | Department of Anthropology, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
William Belcher, Ph.D. | School Of Global Integrative Studies, Department Of Anthropology, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln
Michael Darter, Ph.D. | Emeritus Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Renee Davis | Directorate of History and Heritage, Canada’s Casualty Identification Program
Ellen McRae Greytak, Ph.D. | Director of Bioinformatics, Parabon NanoLabs, Inc.
William J. Horton | Special Agent, Murdered and Missing Unit, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Gregg Jamison, Ph.D. | Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha
Alicia Lawson | Department of Anthropology, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Alan Lee |Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sarah Lockyer, Ph.D. | Casualty Identification Coordinator, Directorate of History and Heritage, Canada’s Casualty Identification Program
Andrew Pietruszka, Ph.D. | Underwater Archaeologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography-University of California, San Diego
Registration for the 2023 Recovery Innovation Technology Summit is Now Open!
Want to attend the Inaugural Recovery Innovation Technology Summit in-person? Can’t join us in-person and want to join us virtually?
Register now via one of the links below*.
General Public Student Virtual
*Registration fee covers all three days of the summit
Important Links
The Inaugural Recovery Innovation Technology Summit Schedule
2023 RITS Sponsorship Prospectus
Questions? Contact us.
The Inaugural Recovery Innovation Technology Summit
February 22-24, 2022
University of Wisconsin-Madison Biotechnology Center
425 Henry Mall, Suite 3130
Madison, WI 53706
Dates & Deadlines for Abstracts
- Deadline for Submissions: Tuesday, January 24, 2022
- Selections Announced: TBA (Late January)
Information for Attendees
- Registration is open for members of the general public, for students and for virtual attendance.
Hotel Accommodations in Madison
- THE EDGEWATER – Official MIA Project Hotel Partner
- Graduate Madison
- Wisconsin Union Hotel & Club Suites (on campus)
- Fluno Center (on campus)
- Double Tree by Hilton Hotel Madison
- Hilton Garden Inn Madison Downtown
- Hampton Inn & Suites Madison
- AC Hotel Madison Downtown
- Best Western Premier Park Hotel
- Madison Concourse Hotel
- Accommodations in the Greater Madison Area
- Wisconsin Bed and Breakfast Association