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September 28, 2009
WVU biometrics, forensics get $5 million in grants
By The Associated Press
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- West Virginia University's biometrics and forensic science programs are getting a $5 million boost.
The FBI is giving WVU $1 million in grants to develop and improve evidence-collection technologies and training tools for the agency.
One grant is for research on improving fingerprint analysis. The other is for research in finding better ways to collect human scents.
WVU has also won a $4 million grant from the Department of Justice for forensics research and professional training, both online and in the classroom.
WVU is the academic arm of the FBI's Biometric Center of Excellence and provides research support to the FBI and its law enforcement partners. It has helped train thousands of officers.
This post about WVU (and the similar one about Marshall) reminded me that forensics would be a very good career choice, and now West Virginia has two excellent programs.
I would think that job prospects are good, as the use of forensics becomes more and more specialized, and it's almost impossible to out-source to foreign countries.
Back in the Age of Aquarius, bell-bottoms, and Nehru jackets, the FBI recruited a lot of HS grads in West Virginia, to go to Washington as clerk-typists. Three young ladies from my high school class did so. Two of them didn't like it in DC, and soon returned to Wild and Wonderful, but one of them stuck with it.
An aptitude test showed she might do good at fingerprinting, and so they diverted her into a fingerprint analyst training program. A little later, she started studying in the new field of blood splatter pattern analysis. After ten years with the FBI, she got hired away by the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement (FDLE), where she spent the next 20 or so years as one of the first CSIs (before we had ever heard of the term).
Eventually, she was elected Chairman and President of the International Association for Identification, which is the professional group for CSIs. She "retired" about five years ago. Now she spends her time traveling the world conducting forensic training seminars, consulting, and testifying as an expert witness.
This post about WVU (and the similar one about Marshall) reminded me that forensics would be a very good career choice, and now West Virginia has two excellent programs.
I would think that job prospects are good, as the use of forensics becomes more and more specialized, and it's almost impossible to out-source to foreign countries.
Back in the Age of Aquarius, bell-bottoms, and Nehru jackets, the FBI recruited a lot of HS grads in West Virginia, to go to Washington as clerk-typists. Three young ladies from my high school class did so. Two of them didn't like it in DC, and soon returned to Wild and Wonderful, but one of them stuck with it.
An aptitude test showed she might do good at fingerprinting, and so they diverted her into a fingerprint analyst training program. A little later, she started studying in the new field of blood splatter pattern analysis. After ten years with the FBI, she got hired away by the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement (FDLE), where she spent the next 20 or so years as one of the first CSIs (before we had ever heard of the term).
Eventually, she was elected Chairman and President of the International Association for Identification, which is the professional group for CSIs. She "retired" about five years ago. Now she spends her time traveling the world conducting forensic training seminars, consulting, and testifying as an expert witness.
Not a bad career at all.
True, and WVU's long standing relationship with the FBI and the Justice Department provides for great opportunities for graduates that will likely endure even with the coming changes that are likely to take place with the political situation in the State.
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