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.
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 scrutiny on both the science they performed and the scientific principles behind it.
“No matter how many times we revamp our training program and we add and take away and try to streamline it or increase the amount of reading they do, it never fails that we always miss something.”
Twenty years in, and this is still the problem. “Training has continued to be an obstacle throughout my 20 year career.”
Dawn Romano is working through FIGG — not just the science, but the operational reality of bringing forensic investigative genetic genealogy online inside a functioning crime lab.
“I did get my master’s certificate at the University of New Haven in FIGG, but I’m still trying to figure out how to bring — and maybe not so much the science, but how to bring something like genealogy online in the laboratory.”
The intelligence kit is in validation. The MiSeq is in house. The science isn’t the sticking point. Building the infrastructure, the workflows, the integration — that’s where the work is.
Pam Marshall is still figuring out work-life balance.
She says it plainly: “I still have not figured it out.”
She takes work home. She absorbs what her students are dealing with on a personal level. She knows this is something she needs to model differently — not because it’s expected, but because her students are watching. “Really just trying to role model healthier behaviors, healthier habits for our students so that they then in turn can lead their lives that same way.”
Meradeth Snow’s answer is about the pace of the literature — and the persistent feeling that she’s not keeping up.
“There’s just always so much new information coming out. Sometimes it’s impossible to keep on top of the literature. And I wish I could more effectively because there’s so much cool stuff that’s being done.”
She names other threads too: how to teach better, how to convey information more effectively, how to be more assertive. The uncertainty isn’t a sign of stagnation — it’s a sign of a scientist who hasn’t stopped asking the question.
Meet the ISHI Advisory Committee
Dawn Romano is the DNA Technical Lead and Forensic Supervisor of the Biology Unit at Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Forensic Services Division.
Shena Latcham is a Forensic Scientist Supervisor in DNA Casework at the Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Laboratory.
Meradeth Snow, Ph.D. is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Montana, specializing in degraded and ancient DNA, NGS, and forensic investigative genetic genealogy.
Pamela Marshall, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Director of the Forensic Science and Law Program at Duquesne University and a member of Promega’s Forensic Leadership Alliance.