Clea is a forensic anthropologist and author. She was a member of the first international forensic team brought together by the United Nations to investigate evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, commencing in Rwanda with Physicians for Human Rights in 1996. She subsequently participated in missions in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, where she was Deputy Chief Anthropologist of the UN International Criminal Tribunal Morgue in 2000.
The Bone Woman, Clea’s memoir of her experiences working for the war crimes tribunals, was published by Random House in 2004 and has been translated into ten languages and published in fourteen countries. Among other honors, The Bone Woman was awarded the Nancy (France) Human Rights Book Prize, was a National Public Radio Best, a Discover Magazine Top 20 Science Book, and an Editor's Pick of the Foreign Policy Association.
Clea went on to co-coordinate the Anthropology Laboratory of the UN Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus on behalf of Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (EAAF) and she founded the non-profit Missing Persons Identification Resource Center to develop forensic profiles of missing persons designed to address the backlog of tens of thousands of unidentified bodies in the US.
Clea holds a BA from Stanford University, an MA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and was trained by Dr. Walt Birkby while a Master's student in the graduate forensic anthropology program at the University of Arizona.
Born in England to an American father of Polish and Russian descent and a Tanzanian mother, Clea was raised in England, East Africa and both coasts of the United States as her parents made documentary films. She now writes fiction. Her first novel, Freezing, was published by Severn House in 2011 and by Éditions Héloïse d’Ormesson in translation in 2012 when it was nominated for French ELLE's Prix des Lectrices.
Clea's Jayne & Steelie Series will be published in 2024 by HarperCollins Avon in a three-book deal, continuing into 2025. The Jayne & Steelie Series audiobooks will be published in translation in a five-country, three-book deal with Audible for Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. May 2024 will also see two of Clea's novels published in translation: Freezing as THE BONE LANGUAGE by Eksmo and SURFACING by Éditions Héloïse d’Ormesson.
Author portrait © David Ignaszewski
Clea is represented by Anna Soler-Pont and Carla Briner of Pontas Literary & Film Agency
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The high volume of emails only allows Clea to respond to some messages but she appreciates all communications.