W. Reef Hardy is currently a Senior Criminalist and the DNA Technical Lead for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. His interests are diverse, including Molecular Virology (Caltech and University of California, Irvine), Stem Cell Biology (IUPUI and the University of California, Los Angeles), and DNA Forensics (Los Angeles Police Department & Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner). Altogether, he has authored 42 publications spanning all three fields of interest. The unifying factor in these pursuits is the application of new technologies to gain more information about the subject under study. He has seen many technological improvements during his 16 years in DNA Forensics. However, he believes that SNP profiling coupled with FIGG will be the most outstanding advance in DNA Forensics for suspect and missing person identification since STR analysis and CODIS searching. Dr. Hardy has been honored by the California Forensic Science Institute and serves on their Board of Directors. Dr. Hardy is originally from Hawaii, and in his free time, he enjoys all sorts of water sports and spending time with his wife, identical twin daughters, and two Samoyeds.