According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, head injuries account for 44% of all injury related deaths in the United States. Predictive head injury indicators are being used in car crash evaluations, forensic science investigations, and in research as an alternative to expensive, unpractical, and sometimes unethical animal or human experimentation [1]. The purpose of the present work is to characterize the structural and mechanical properties of the multilayer scalp and create a preliminary FEA model based on our findings. A longer term goal is to develop a high fidelity Finite Element (FE) model of human head.Copyright © 2011 by ASME