COM Outlook Spring 2020

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 27 100th time when I stumbled upon the SEARCH, Inc. website,” she said. “I immediately fell in love with the biographies of every single employee and was absolutely floored when I found out they had a Jacksonville office.” SEARCH, which is the largest, private, cultural resource manage- ment firm in the United States, pro- vided several intriguing opportuni- ties, including participating in international World War II soldier repatriations. “I knew I had to work for SEARCH, so I took a chance and went straight to the top. I emailed the company’s president directly, and to my surprise, he emailed back and offered me an interview shortly thereafter,” Reinsch explained. “In my case, timing was every- thing,” she continued. “SEARCH had recently been in talks with the DPAA about some repatriation opportunities abroad, and they were in the market for a few for- ensic archaeologists to add to their team. When I sent that email to the company’s president, I had no idea he was going to make my wildest dreams come true.” Working as a forensic archaeol- ogist on U.S. service personnel recoveries allowed Reinsch to assist with mission logistics, recovery, and evidence documen- tation. “I helped identify human remains, dug units, screened dirt, handled evidence, and filled out chain-of-custody forms. I also worked on three projects as an osteologist for SEARCH and even appeared on a television show for the History channel,” she said. “As an osteologist, I determined the biological profiles for unidenti- fied individuals based on skeletal markers for age, sex, stature, and ancestry,” she added. “When I wasn’t working abroad on human remains projects, I worked in the office or in the field as an archaeologist for SEARCH’s energy division, which handles cultural resource manage- ment surveys for large-scale oil and natural gas pipelines, as well as renewable energy projects.” Medical School Mindset During one of her overseas recovery expeditions, however, a conversation with a female physician permanently altered Reinsch’s career course. “She started talking to me about hyperbaric medicine, and by the end of our chat, she said, ‘You seem really interested in medicine. Why didn’t you become a doctor?’ I replied that I had never really considered it, and now I was too old to try,” Reinsch explained. “She laughed at me, described how she had been a nurse before she went to medical school, and encouraged me to give it a shot,” Reinsch continued. “That was really all it took. I started research- ing medical school requirements and enrolled in community college courses while still working as an archaeologist full time before trans- ferring to the University of North Florida to finish the rest of my prerequisite courses.” According to Reinsch, the time she spent working as a forensic archaeologist solidified her desire