Just Science

Season two, episode four of Just Science involves a case through the eyes of an investigator.  Mike Weber, an investigator with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office in the Crimes Against Children Unit, walks us through a case involving Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Munchausen Syndrome by proxy is a rare form of child or elderly abuse where a primary caretaker exaggerates or creates their...

Season two, episode three of Just Science involves a case through the eyes of an investigator. Mike Weber, an investigator with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office in the Crimes Against Children Unit, walks us through a case involving Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Munchausen Syndrome by proxy is a rare form of child or elderly abuse where a primary caretaker exaggerates or creates their...

Episode two of the Just Science podcast involves a case from Canada that Deputy Director Andrew Greenfield worked on when he was a young scientist. The gruesome murder of a child in 1999 in Toronto was unheard of and it dominated the air waves, and because of inaccurate witness statements describing the suspects, it was near impossible to generate leads for this case. Greenfield spoke up to one of...

JUST CASE STUDIES: MEL HALL – A SEXUAL PREDATOR For the second season of Just Science we will be delving into case studies. These case interviews include victim accounts, lawyers, investigators, and crime lab directors. They will tell you about cases they have personally worked during their career, and what tactics they used to bring their victims justice. Episode one is a case involving a former...

This special release season of the 2017 NIJ R&D Symposium of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], interviews Dr. Rob Maher. Below is the abstract submitted where Dr. Rob Maher explains his research: Gunshot acoustics–interpretation of the characteristic sounds produced by firearms recorded at a crime scene–is...

Dr. LaMotte and Dr. Wells discuss their NIJ funded research on PMI and how it can help crime scene investigators. This is their abstract submitted for the R&D Symposium: "To our knowledge an estimate of time since death is almost never accompanied by the kind of mathematically explicit probability statement that is the standard in most scientific disciplines. This has been a problem both for death...

Just Bath Salts  In this special release episode of the 2017 NIJ R&D Symposium, Just Science interviews Lindsay Glicksberg, a student from Sam Houston State University. This is an excerpt from the abstract submitted by the guest, Lindsay Glicksberg explaining the research discussed in this episode: The ongoing proliferation of designer drugs present a variety of public health and safety concerns....

In this special release season, Just Science will be covering presenters at the National Institute of Justice’s Research and Development Symposium Meeting held in conjunction with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana in February of 2017. The first of four episodes, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence,...

Just Hairy Isotopes  In episode ten of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], we spoke with Dr. Gwyneth Gordon,  from Arizona State University.  Dr. Gordon and her team have developed methods to use the isotopic abundance of elements in hair to learn more about the history of an individual. This NIJ funded resea...

Just Blood Spatter In episode nine of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], we spoke with Dr. Marc Smith, from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Smith’s NIJ funded research in blood spatter has connected computational fluid dynamics with empirical studies to improve the understanding of blood spatter ont...

In episode eight of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], we spoke with Dr. Christopher Krebs, a Senior Research Social Scientist at RTI International. Dr. Krebs’ research has shed light on the problem of sexual assault on college campuses and prisons. We discuss the history of RTI research in the area and how...

Just Dry Bones: In the seventh episode of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], guest speakers Dr. Melissa Connor, Dr. Eriek Hansen, and Christiane Baigent discuss their NIJ funded research. A study was launched in late 2015 using two methods, Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and Total Body Desiccation. O...

In the sixth episode of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], guest speaker Dr. Paul Speaker discusses the FORESIGHT program. Dr. Speaker, an Associate Professor at West Virginia University, will describe how The FORESIGHT program helps crime laboratories manage their finances and track their performance by usi...

DNA Mixture Interpretation In the fifth episode of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], we have guest speaker Dr. Catherine Grgicak speaking about one of the hot topics in forensic science, DNA Mixture interpretation. Dr. Grgicak and her colleagues at Boston University have developed tools and resources that a...

SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY For episode four of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], we will be diving into the world of statistics and how it applies forensic case work with Dr. Christophe Champod and Dr. Tacha Hicks from the University of Lausanne. They, along with RTI International resident fingerprint expert, c...

Episode Three of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], features Dr. Ryan Lilien, from Cadre Forensics and Todd Weller, from the Oakland Police Department talking about their groundbreaking research in optical topography and firearms identification. Optical topography is a mean to give firearms examiners data th...

In episode two, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], Dr. Tom Busey explores the importance of human factors as it relates to fingerprint analysis and interpretation. He, along with RTI International resident fingerprint expert, co-host Heidi Eldridge, will discuss the dangers in performing large database searches and the to...

The first episode of Just Science, funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110], will feature guest speaker Barry Fisher. It will dive into Barry’s legacy, which goes back to the 1960s, and how he used leadership in the crime laboratory to overcome obstacles. The FTCoE will be releasing a Forensic Leadership Series in 2017, which Ba...

TrailerJustScience by RTI International