Much of this research has centered around attempts to create new methods of determining biological profile (height, age, sex, and ancestry) from an individual's skeletal remains.
The Terry Collection has also contributed to the construction of the Forensic Anthropology Data Bank (FDB), which is large digital database of skeletal measurements taken from various cases since its establishment in 1986.
[8] The FDB is the main data pool that the computer program FORDISC utilizes in order to estimate sex, stature, and ancestry from specific skeletal measurements.
As mentioned above, numerous studies have utilized the Robert J. Terry Collection for research and development of skeletal identification techniques.
The result was a number of formulas that allow for accurate estimation of the living stature of both American White and African-American males and females from dry bone.
[2] Another well known study that utilized the Terry Collection to create forensic identification methods was the assessment of race/ancestry using the pelvis performed by Mehmet Yaşar Işcan.
His study utilized 400 individuals from the Terry collection that encompassed both White and African American male and female pelves of known age and race/ancestry.
It was, however, cautioned to use these results carefully due to the fact that a large number of the remains were of low socioeconomic status and of unknown nutritional health.
Such studies have been conducted by Kristina Killgrove, who aimed at determining biodistance of Native American populations on the North Carolina Coastal Plain and utilized 52 individuals (26 White males and 26 White females) from the Terry Collection as a control group for comparison against the Native American data that was processed.
Their research focused on reconstructing body mass from skeletal remains and used a sample of 60 individuals (30 males and 30 females) from the Terry Collection in order to make these assessments.