The CSAFE All Hands Meeting that took place this past Wednesday through Friday was a fascinating and eye opening experience. It was a great opportunity to sit down and listen to the different approaches to the research that is currently going on in the organization.
During the breakout session for group 1 (Human Factors), there were multiple topics that were brought up in regards to the concepts of proficiency, subjection, and bias. In opening, the panel began to lay out the forensic proses that can be used during an investigation, but it was brought up that approaches and procedures may change from lab to lab. This was followed by questions as to where stats belongs in the field. Are we trying to eliminate the need for subjection? Are we trying to create a new tool that will be used in addition to the work already being done? These were just two of the questions that were asked.
As far as the Human Factors research goes, I would like to be involved with the juror study projects. A jury must sit a variety of people from a number of backgrounds. Developing a way for them to completely understand scientific evidence (both statistical, biological, chemical, etc.) can be challenging if they have not been exposed to the fields in the past. I think it would be a fascinating experience and have always wondered just how they proses this evidence. Working on an educational system for the jurors, lawyers, judges, and scientists themselves was one of the strategies mentioned. In my opinion, the coolest aspect of this project would be developing a universal strategy to make sure that everyone involved in a case understands the science and statistical backing to an investigation. In addition, to make sure that all evidence is both viewed and analyzed by professional scientists and subjected to statistical models to support the findings.
During the breakout session for group 7, we discussed the shoe print projects and focused on how to collect and then best utilize data. As far as forensic proses goes, the discussion centered on the ability to reliably collect evidence and what could be gained from this it. Accidentals and how they appear in shoes was a huge portion of the conversation. Currently, it appears we are looking for a statistical way to ID shoes based on these “unique” markings.
I would be interested in working any of the shoe print projects at this point. Each seems to be approaching the problem from a slightly different angle and has interesting ideas as to how they are going to move forward. In general, I find it interesting as to how the shoes will change over time and how this will affect the data. Moving forward, they are looking to collect data and continue to develop a database. They need to collect large samples of shoes and mark the accidentals in order to begin to develop a statistical model that would tell us what they likelihood of that marking being on that shoe is.
The Poster session, later Thursday night, provided nice summaries for each of the projects. Continuing on with my interest in the shoe pattern project, I talked with Neil Spencer from Carnegie Mellon University. The project that he is currently working on involves identifying were accidentals are most likely to occur. Currently, there has been progress in that they are finding that as shoes wear, there is some uniqueness to the ways the accidentals appear. When asked about the ability to make a model that will span between shoe styles and sole patterns, he responded that they are looking to control the soles investigated in order to create an accidental based model that would be universal.
All in All, I found this to be a fantastic experience. This was a new side of the forensics field that I had not seen before and it was eye opening just how many different projects and there were and how many ideas there were to make them a reality.