Casey Varabkanich-Payne has always been drawn to the stories bones can tell.
Growing up watching the TV show “Bones,” he was fascinated by the idea that fragments of a skeleton could reveal so much about a person’s life.
That fascination led him to take an osteology class in 2018 during his undergraduate studies at The Ohio State University, where he learned to identify even the smallest bone fragments and determine their place in the body.
“I have a very spatially detail-oriented brain, which is kind of what you need to pick up a piece and think about where it fits in the body,” Varabkanich-Payne said.
The class also introduced Varabkanich-Payne to forensic anthropology techniques, such as estimating biological sex from skeletal features like those of the pelvis.
“We went over how certain features are more likely a male pelvis or these features are more likely a female pelvis,” he said. “As a trans person in this class, I was like, well, what does my pelvis look like and how does that work?”
That question planted a seed. “When I was looking at grad schools and even from that class, I thought, ‘trans bones are interesting, but we don’t have data. We have no way to research this,’” Varabkanich-Payne said.
His curiosity eventually led him to work with Kyra Stull, Ph.D., his current advisor, who was pushing boundaries on this topic.
“She’s looking into how to estimate sex for subadults, or people younger than 18,” Varabkanich-Payne said. This was something he had previously been told was impossible. “In my osteology class, I was taught you never do that,” he said. “And I was like, ‘OK, wait. How is she doing this?’”
He shared that Stull and her team of doctoral students “ … found that the traits used for sex estimation really kind of starts in the later stages of puberty,” he said. “Because if we use the final form of an adult pelvis, that form has to come from somewhere — it comes from going through puberty.”
All of this led to Varabkanich-Payne’s current research question: “What effect does hormone replacement therapy have on the development of the pelvis?”
Varabkanich-Payne’s research proposal earned him one of the most prestigious honors for graduate students in science: the (NSF GRFP). As a 2025 NSF GRFP recipient, Varabkanich-Payne joins a select group of the country’s most promising graduate students. The fellowship provides three years of financial support, including a $37,000 annual stipend, over a five-year period, allowing recipients to fully focus on their research and studies.
Reflecting on his application, Varabkanich-Payne shared that writing the proposal was like “ … ripping my heart out and giving it to someone, saying, ‘This is who I am.’” He admits that when he reread his proposal after winning, he was amazed by the authenticity and vulnerability he poured into it. The personal statement, which traces his journey from challenging circumstances to thriving in graduate school, became a source of confidence and self-belief for him.
Another critical support in Varabkanich-Payne’s application journey was Jenna Altherr Flores, Ph.D., director of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Office of Undergraduate (and Graduate) Fellowships, whose workshop on crafting NSF GRFP proposals was, in Varabkanich-Payne’s words, “really what made this happen.”
While Varabkanich-Payne acknowledges his own hard work, he emphasizes how foundational Altherr Flores’s guidance was, not just in submitting the application but in understanding how to build a competitive proposal.
Looking back, Varabkanich-Payne says, “Even if I didn’t win, I needed this to believe that I have the capability to do this project in grad school.”
When he first met with his advisor, all he had was a broad research interest: “I would love to research trans bones. I don’t know what that looks like.” But through hard work, mentorship, and perseverance, Varabkanich-Payne grew that initial curiosity into a detailed proposal that earned him one of the nation’s most prestigious fellowships, the .
