This Week in Forensic Science
No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door! How Discarded Chewing Gum Helped Convict a Serial Rapist of Two Cold Case Murders […]
What They’re Still Figuring Out: A Conversation with the ISHI Advisory Committee
Experience doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. The ISHI Advisory Committee was asked what they’re still figuring out as forensic scientists. The answers are specific, honest, and probably familiar. https://youtu.be/xpOeLs-hB-c Shena Latcham is still working on training. Not whether to train — how. Specifically: how to get analysts prepared to walk into a courtroom and hold up under […]
Cold Case, Complex Mixture: How a 1963 Homicide Was Solved with Probabilistic Genotyping
Kari Danser joined Cybergenetics as an intern fresh out of Duquesne University’s forensic science program. She was filling in for someone on maternity leave. Two years later, she’s a primary analyst on 89 cases, has testified three times in court, and recently helped build a statistical link between a suspect and a murder weapon. Cybergenetics […]
This Week in Forensic Science
No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door! DNA, Facial Recognition Track Down Suspect in 1991 Kidnapping, Murder (Forensic – 4/29/2026) Advanced […]
Dear Mentor: Building a Lab Where Critical Thinking Thrives
Critical thinking in a forensic lab isn’t something that develops on its own. It develops because someone created the conditions for it, and those conditions don’t appear by accident. That’s the frame the FLA mentors brought to a recent question from the field: how can leaders cultivate critical thinking in their teams? Their answers weren’t […]
When CODIS Isn’t Enough: How One Lab Is Closing the Gaps in Border Identification
Texas law designates a single institution as the primary repository for unidentified human remains recovered along the Mexico-Texas border: the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas in Fort Worth. Every set of remains recovered by state and local law enforcement agencies along that corridor comes to CHI. Getting them identified is […]
This Week in Forensic Science
No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door! Forensic Science Expert John M. Collins Announces Pre-Orders for New Book (Norfolk Daily News […]
The Problems They’re Actually Working On: A Conversation with the ISHI Advisory Committee
Not hypothetical challenges. Not field-wide abstractions. The actual, specific problems that four members of the ISHI Advisory Committee are working on right now — in their labs, with their teams, and in their research. https://youtu.be/SoypcvHwicg Shena Latcham is working on the backlog. Missouri passed a statute requiring all sexual assault kits to be collected and […]
What If You Could Screen for Mixtures Before the STR Profile? A Q&A with ISHI Student Ambassador Kiersten Fultz
Forensic DNA workflows are built around the STR profile. It’s also where analysts first learn a sample has a problem — a mixture they didn’t anticipate, a template too low to produce usable results. By then, the options for adjusting the approach have narrowed considerably. Kiersten Fultz, a master’s student in Forensic Science at Virginia […]