Flip through the channels most any night and you'll run across one of
these television programs.
We're not talking reality shows here, although some in the Department
of Chemistry hope to make forensics science a reality at Iowa State.
No, the television shows that have potential chemistry majors and graduate
students talking are "CSI" and "CSI Miami" and all
their knockoffs.
According to Patricia Thiel, distinguished professor of chemistry, it's
a hot area in popular chemistry, and has a lot of people thinking.
"There's so much of this type of programming on television that it's
catching people's imaginations and many are thinking about forensics science
as a career," she said.
Thiel estimates that nearly half of prospective Department of Chemistry
undergraduate students and a significant fraction of graduate students
as well, are saying they want to explore being a forensic chemist.
Motivated also by the establishment of the Midwest Forensics Resource
Center (MFRC) on campus, Thiel appointed an ad hoc committee to look into
the possibility of building links between the Department of Chemistry
and forensic science, while she was chair of the department.
That ad hoc committee came back with a variety of suggestions, including
seminars, internships and even a graduate specialization.
"But no one had the time to follow up on these recommendations,"Thiel
said. "They wound up on the back burner."
And they remained there until Thiel's term as chair of the Department
of Chemistry expired. Then she went to the new chair, Gordie Miller, and
he agreed that she should take this project on.
Last fall, Thiel became the University's "unofficial lightening rod"
by coordinating a National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT preproposal,
focusing on the physical/biological/mathematical aspects of forensic science.
In so doing, she gained an appreciation of campus-wide forensic activities,
not just activities in her own department.
The proposal, which garnered participation from numerous academic departments
and colleges across campus, sought to combine internships, high-level
research, and coursework relevant to forensics.
"The research that was brought to the table collapsed naturally into
five topics, four of which dovetailed beautifully together," Thiel
said.
Those included:
*Development and implementation of new techniques for analysis of physical
evidence and for defense
* Development of databases for establishing the origin of physical evidence
*Development of new statistical methods for, and statistical analysis
of, the reliability of evidence identification.
* Development of genetic techniques and databases for population analysis.
Throw in computer forensics and it makes natural sense for Iowa State
to explore forensic sciences.
Except for the moment, that must be done without an IGERT grant, since
NSF denied the preproposal.
" From all the work that we did on the IGERT it became clear that
many people on campus are doing research that could strengthen forensics
greatly," she said. "It may be that forensic science activities
don't necessarily fit the IGERT requirements but there are other funding
sources that we may go after."
One of the concerns Thiel has about the current popularity of "CSI"
and its spin-offs, is how glamorous the programs make the profession seem.
The glamour is far from the reality.
"Almost no opportunities exist for employment of Ph.D.s in this area,"
she said. "What we really would like to do is to give our students
exposure to forensic science and allow them to decide if it’s a good
career option for them. That exposure would also benefit forensic science,
even if the students don’t necessarily wind up being employed in
the field, because it would create an educated scientific population."
To achieve that goal, Thiel hopes to establish internships at forensics
labs across the country, perhaps even at Iowa’s Department of Criminal
Investigations (DCI). Some funding may become available for this from
a bequest from an alumnus, Cal Rayburn, two years ago. Rayburn spent his
career working at the DCI.
"Things have the potential to fall into place very nicely,"
she said. "I firmly believe it is important for the University expand
into this area, because Iowa State is in a great position to do it, because
it serves society, and because the interest comes from the bottom up."
Around LAS
February 24 to March 9, 2003
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