Dr. Rita Hardiman

Rita Hardiman is the lecturer in head and neck anatomy at the Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne. She is co-curator of the Melbourne Femur Research Collection. Dr. Hardiman completed her PhD, titled ‘Factors Affecting the Strength of the Femoral Mid-shaft Cortex‘ in 2010. As part of her honors and doctoral studies, Dr. Hardiman has worked with the Melbourne Femur Research Collection since 1998, recently facilitating remote access to collection data via DaRIS.

Dr. Hardiman was previously the curator of the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology at the University of Melbourne, and brings with her significant experience in curating and cataloguing human remains. Her research interests lie in the broad arena of determining life history events from mineralised tissues, including effects on cortical bone tissue, skull morphology, dental anthropology, as well as using advanced technologies to study these research questions.