Kathleen Joan Reichs (née Toelle, born July 7, 1948) is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist, and academic. She is a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Reichs is well known for inspiring the television series Bones.

She is a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Reichs is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials.

Reichs received the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 1998 for Deja Dead.