The University of South Florida department of anthropology will join this week with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring law enforcement personnel from across the country to explore up-to-the-minute advances in investigative strategies for catching online sexual predators.

USF undergraduate and graduate students will learn a variety of forensic imaging techniques such as facial reconstructions, superimpositions, and age progression and regression techniques, skills that are critical to solving missing persons cases.

In the year since the partnership between USF and MCMEC began, the anthropology department, led by assistant professor Erin Kimmerle, has hosted three training programs for law enforcement that have brought more than 50 participants from five countries to USF, according to a news release issued by the university.

“With the use of the internet to target children a growing problem, providing such training offers a real world solution to a significant problem,” Kimmerle said in the release. “This is not only an opportunity to seek justice for victims but also to prevent more children from becoming victims.”

Donna Winchester, higher education reporter