Human skeletal remains were recently found in the woods in Cumberland County. The bones are estimated to be about two years old. Now, the focus will be on identify the remains.

So what is the process? Who will assign a life to this scattering of old bones?

Graham Hetrick has served as Dauphin County's coroner for 25 years, participated in 3,000 autopsies and certified more than 13,000 deaths. He is an avid student of thanatology - the study of death and how passings impact people and society. He lectures on grief counseling and hosts The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead on the Investigation Discovery channel.

Hetrick will join Thursday's Smart Talk to talk about identifying human remains and discuss the topic of death and why it is important to understand the process of dying.

Also, The Diane Rehm Show has been a fixture on public radio stations, including WITF, but when she retires at the end of this year, a new program will make its debut. It's called 1A and will be hosted by Joshua Johnson.

He was the co-creator and host of Truth Be Told, a radio series about race in America, and spent five years as the morning host at KQED, San Francisco. 1A with Joshua Johnson will debut January 2nd and can be heard hear on WITF.

Smart Talk's Scott LaMar will speak with Johnson about the new show, the pressures of hosting a national program and what the future of news reporting will look like.