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Student doc earns recognition in National History Day competitions
Crime stories seemingly have always been a staple of popular culture. Murder mysteries featured characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, and new crime novels continue to top readers’ lists. Pulp and dime magazines often focused on crime stories. True crime stories such as Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” grabbed readers’ attention in the 1960s. Today fictional crime and law enforcement series dominate the television landscape, and true crime podcasts draw large audiences.
Makenna Kutzschebauch (’26) is interested in murder mysteries and forensic science, which is the use of scientific methods to investigate crimes. This past year, she turned those interests into an award-winning documentary about American forensic scientist Frances Glessner Lee.
“Dioramas of Death: Reforming Forensic Medicine in the U.S.”, a 10-minute documentary about Lee, earned Kutzschebauch a trip to Maryland this summer to compete in the National History Day National Contest. This year’s National Contest was held on the University of Maryland campus.
National History Day is a competition in which students in the sixth through 12th grades choose a historical topic to research. They present their findings through papers, exhibits, performances, websites or documentaries. National History Day is an educational, nonprofit organization that promotes history and civics education. The National Park Service and the National Endowment for the Humanities are among the organization’s and competition’s sponsors.
Lee was a forensic scientist who created the Nutshell Studies of
Makenna Kutzschebauch (‘26) made a short documentary about Frances Glessner Lee, who is often considered the mother of criminal forensic science.
Unexplained Death, 20 dioramas of true-crime scenes recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale. Lee endowed the creation of the Department of Legal Medicine within Harvard Medical School in 1931, the first such department in the country. It eventually opened in 1940.
“She taught police officers observation skills with these scenes through weeklong, intensive seminars,” Kutzschebauch said. “Before her, there was nowhere in the U.S. to be educated in forensic medicine, and police officers rarely knew what forensic medicine was.”
Kutzshebauch earned third-place honors in the documentary category at a regional National History Day competition in March at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She followed that with up with a first-place win at the state competition in April at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, qualifying for the national competition.
Kutzschebauch became fascinated with Lee and her accomplishments in forensic science after Lee was mentioned in “The Box in the Woods” by Maureen Johnson. Her research included reading “18 Tiny Deaths” by Bruce Goldfarb, a biography of Lee, as well as a book by Corinne May Botz that included photos of the Nutshell Studies. That was just part of her research.
“I read newspapers from the time and dozens of articles about her. I also interviewed Bruce Goldfarb, who, along with writing the only book-length biography on Lee, also worked with the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death at Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner,” Kutzschebauch said.
From there, she wrote a script and recorded herself reading it. Then she found images and videos for the documentary’s visuals and added music. Kutzschebauch’s roommate helped her record a short intro.
Dr. Zachery Cowsert (’08), a history instructor at ASMSA, praised Kutzschebauch’s efforts to create the documentary. “I’ve been deeply impressed by the depth of her scholarly research and the high quality of her documentary editing,” Cowsert said. “Netflix worthy! She’s blazing a new path for history and humanities here at ASMSA and deserves immense credit for it.”
Kutzschebauch didn’t advance to the finals at the National Contest, but she described the experience as amazing and incredibly rewarding. She had the opportunity to attend an information session on a potential film collaboration between Polish and American students as well as a student-led discussion about a film where she was able to meet students from across the United States and international schools.
But her favorite moment of the week was sitting in on a session featuring Ken Burns, the filmmaker known for documentaries such as “Baseball,” “The Civil War,” “Country
Music” and many others. Burns spoke about his career.
“It was so inspiring to see such a successful historical filmmaker give a talk in person,” she said.
Students from each state were given pins from their home state that they could use to trade for pins from other states. Kutzschebauch also had a chance to see some of the Nutshell Studies in person at Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Kutzschebauch would like for more ASMSA students to participate in the competition next year. “Competing in National History Day has taught me so many values and skills. I’ve improved my public speaking and writing skills and found a passion for filmmaking, among other things. Next year’s theme is Rights and Responsibilities, and I’m so excited to see new people participating.”
