Recent Research on the Foundations of
Fingerprint Comparison Decisions
YouTube
Live Event for Q and A
Recent Research on the Foundations of
Fingerprint Comparison Decisions
Presented by Heidi Eldridge, PhD
Assistant Professor of Forensic Science and Director of
Graduate Studies in Crime Scene Investigations
The George Washington University
Wednesday, February 12, 7pm US/Eastern
(UTC-05:00)
NCASVideo
YouTube Channel:
Fingerprints have long been viewed as infallible -- the "gold
standard" when it comes to criminal identification. But recent
critical reports and scrutiny have illuminated the fact that
fingerprint science, though in use for more than 100 years in
the courts, never went through the rigorous process of building
a scientific foundation that most scientific endeavors must
complete as part of their growing pains. This talk will briefly
highlight some of the questions the field is currently grappling
with and review the body of research that has sprung up in
response.
Dr. Heidi Eldridge received her MS in Biology from Duke
University and her PhD in Forensic Science from the University of
Lausanne (Switzerland). She spent approximately 11 years working
in state, local, and regional forensic laboratories where she
performed casework in controlled substances, latent prints, and
crime scene analysis and reconstruction including bloodstain
pattern interpretation, shooting reconstruction, event analysis,
biological screening, and serial number restoration. From 2015 to
2022, she was a full-time forensic science researcher at RTI
International, where she completed internally- and
externally-funded research on the suitability decision in latent
prints, establishing a baseline discipline error rate estimate for
palmar comparisons, recognizing warning factors for close
non-matches in latent prints, and human factors in forensic
science. Dr. Eldridge is current Chair of the Friction Ridge
Consensus Body of the American Standards Board (ASB) and of the
Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission
(FEPAC). She sits on the Boards of Directors of both the
International Association for Identification (IAI) and the ASB and
is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS)
and is chair of the Friction Ridge Subcommittee of the
Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic
Science. Additionally, Dr. Eldridge sits on the Editorial Board of
the
Journal of Forensic Identification and is a
peer-reviewer for several other forensic science journals. Dr.
Eldridge is a Certified Latent Print Examiner with the IAI.
