“Discovering the Truth: Forensic Science in Action,” a three-part Convocation lecture series on forensic science, will begin on Monday, March 23. All talks will be held in McEwen Hall Room 209.
The opening lecture will be delivered by Michelli Schmitz, a forensic chemist with Erie County (N.Y.) Central Police Services, who will give an inside look at what really happens in a forensic lab. His agency provides county-wide scientific support and assistance to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies in Erie County. The talk will be held at 6 p.m.
The role of forensic anthropology in the processing of mass disaster scenes with a focus on the Colgan Air 3407 crash in 2009 will be addressed by Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist at the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, Erie Pa., on Thursday, April 9, at 6 p.m.
Dr. Dirkmaat has conducted over 300 forensic anthropology cases for nearly 30 coroners, medical examiners and state police agencies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The cases include nearly 50 field recoveries involving the processing of evidence from human death scenes and the comprehensive forensic anthropological analysis of over 100 sets of human remains.
Michael Williams, a recently retired crime scene investigator and sergeant in the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department, will draw from his 30 years of experience as a police officer to discuss forensic science in the field and discovering what really happened at the scene during his talk on Thursday, April 23, at 4:30 p.m.
Williams, whose career includes 13 years as a senior crime scene analyst, is also a certified police instructor at the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Academy at Jamestown Community College. His forensic investigation technique specialties include latent fingerprinting techniques and examination, impression evidence, blood spatter analysis, photography, accident investigation and death investigation.
The Convocation lecture series, hosted by the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, is free and open to the public.
