ICS News Archive

Dean Stern to speak at AAAS symposium on stronger science behind forensics

Dean Hal Stern, professor of statistics at UCI and co-director of the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE) that is based at Iowa State, is part of a panel of experts who will be discussing "Forensic Sciences: Toward a Stronger Scientific Framework" during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb. 14, 2016 in Washington, D.C. Stern will specifically be speaking about probability models to assess the value of evidence. He will be joined on the panel by Christophe Champod, a professor in the Institute of Police Science at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland; and Karen Kafadar, commonwealth professor and chair of statistics at the University of Virginia and a co-director of CSAFE. The National Institute of Standards and Technology established CSAFE last year with a five-year grant of up to $20 million. The center's primary goal is to build a statistically sound and scientifically solid foundation under two branches of forensics: pattern evidence (including fingerprints and bullet marks) and digital evidence (including data from cell phones and computers).