National Academies Press: OpenBook

The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence (1996)

Chapter: Biographical Information

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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
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Biographical Information

Committee Chair

James F. Crow  is Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin. He holds a PhD degree from the University of Texas. His research has been in Drosophila genetics and population genetics. He has been President of the Genetics Society of American and of the American Society of Human Genetics. Dr Crow has served as Chairman of the Genetics Study Section and the Mammalian Genetics Study Section of the National Institute of Health. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a foreign member of the Japan Academy.

Committee Members

Margaret A. Berger is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, who teaches Evidence, Civil Procedure and a number of related courses. In addition to numerous articles, she is the co-author of Weinstein's Evidence (Matthew Bender) and of Cases and Materials on Evidence (Foundation Press). On behalf of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government, she submitted an amicus curiae brief in Daubert v Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc, the recent Supreme Court case on the admissibility of scientific evidence. She also wrote the Evidentiary Framework chapter for the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. She currently serves as the Reporter to the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence. She received her

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
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Page 220

AB magna cum laude from Radcliffe College and her JD from the Columbia University School of Law.

Shari S. Diamond is Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. She holds a PhD degree in social psychology from Northwestern University and a JD from the University of Chicago. Her research involves judicial and jury decision making and interactions between science and law. She has been President of the American Psychology-Law Society and has served as Editor of the Law & Society Review. She has been a member of the Law and Social Sciences Panel of the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.

David H. Kaye is Regents' Professor of Law at Arizona State University and was Director of the university's Center for the Study of Law, Science and Technology. He holds a JD from the Yale Law School and received degrees in astronomy and physics from Harvard University and MIT. He practiced law with a private law firm and served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Professor Kaye writes extensively on scientific and statistical evidence. His work has appeared in treatises, books, and journals of law, statistics, psychology, medicine, and genetics. He has served as editor or an editorial board member of six journals. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Statistical Association.

Haig H. Kazazian, Jr is the Chairman of the Department of Genetics and Seymour Gray Professor of Molecular Medicine in Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He received his MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research has concentrated on mutation analysis in genetic disease, notably hemoglobin disorders and hemophilia, and on the biology of human transposable elements. He has also had a long interest in DNA diagnosis of genetic disease. Dr Kazazian has served on numerous NIH committees and editorial boards and is the founding coeditor of the journal Human Mutation. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Association of American Physicians, American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Pediatric Society, and the American Society of Human Genetics.

Arno G. Motulsky is Professor Emeritus (active) of Medicine and Genetics at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. He obtained his MD degree at the University of Illinois in 1947, and trained in internal medicine and medical genetics. He was President of the American Society of Human Genetics, and editor of the American Journal of Human Genetics. He serves on multiple editorial boards, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr Motulsky is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 1970s he participated in the NRC committee on genetic screening and in the 1980s he

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
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Page 221

served on the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. He has received a variety of awards for his work. Dr. Motulsky has authored over 300 scientific publications, is coauthor of an influential textbook in his field, and has trained many medical geneticists.

Thomas Nagylaki is Professor of Ecology and Evolution and of Genetics at the University of Chicago. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology. His research is in theoretical population genetics, especially geographical variation, natural selection, random genetic drift, and gene conversion in multigene families. He has been a member of the editorial board of the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics and an associate editor of Theoretical Population Biology and is an editor of the Journal of Mathematical Biology.

Masatoshi Nei is Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and the Director of the Institute of Molecular Evolutionary Genetics at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his PhD from Kyoto University, Japan, in Quantitative Genetics. He is a theoretical population geneticist, and his career has been almost entirely devoted to understanding the cause and mechanism of evolution and developing statistical methods for analyzing and interpreting data on molecular evolution and population genetics. Dr Nei has served on numerous national and international committees and editorial boards and is the founding coeditor of the journal Molecular Evolution and Biology. He has been a Council Member and the President of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the Genetics Society of Japan.

George F. Sensabaugh, Jr is Professor of Forensic Science and Biomedical Sciences in the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. He received his doctorate in Criminology from the University of California, Berkeley, and did post-doctoral research at the University of California, San Diego, and the National Institute for Medical Research, London, England. His research interests include applications of DNA technology in forensic science and epidemiology. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Forensic Sciences, Science and Justice, and Forensic Science Reviews. His professional memberships include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Human Genetics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Society for Forensic Hemogenetics, and the American Chemical Society. He was a member of the National Research Council Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science.

David Siegmund earned his PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Columbia University in 1966. Since then he has taught at Columbia and at Stanford University, where he is currently Professor of Statistics and Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences. He has also been a visiting faculty member at the Hebrew University, the University of Zurich, the University of Heidelberg and Oxford

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
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University. His research interests include sequential statistical analysis and statistical genetics. He is a Fellow and past President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Stephen M. Stigler is the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of Statistics and member of the Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in statistics from the University of California at Berkeley. His research has included work in mathematical statistics, the application of statistics in the social and behavioral sciences, and the history of statistics and its applications, including in biological science. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and several professional societies; he has edited the Journal of the American Statistical Association and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Committee Advisor

Victor A. McKusick is University Professor of Medical Genetics at Johns Hopkins. He received his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr McKusick is the founding coeditor of the international journal GENOMICS and served as founding president of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO). Dr. McKusick is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and served as a member of the Academy's Committee on Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome and chair of its Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science. He also belongs to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Royal College of Physicians (London), and Académie Nationale de Médecine (France).

Staff

Eric A. Fischer is Director of the Board on Biology and the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources at the National Research Council. He received his PhD in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. Before coming to the National Research Council, he served on the faculty in psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, worked on science policy for the US Senate Budget Committee as a AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, was Deputy Director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and was Senior Vice President for Science and Sanctuaries at the National Audubon Society. His major scientific research interest is the evolutionary ecology of life history patterns.

Lee R. Paulson is Program Director for Information Systems and Statistics for the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the National Research Council and Associate with the Report Review Committee of the National Acad-

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
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emy of Sciences. Before that, she was a research associate with the Committee on National Statistics. Her primary interest is in information technology and environmental applications.

Miron L. Straf is the Director of the Research Council's Committee on National Statistics. He holds a PhD degree in Statistics from the University of Chicago. He has served on the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests include the use of statistics in law and for public policy.

John R. Tucker has been Director of the Board on Mathematical Sciences at the National Research Council since June 1994. He earned a BA in Mathematics from Washington College, an MPhil in mathematics and a PhD in mathematics from the George Washington University. He has been a researcher at Chi Associates Inc, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and Mary Washington College, and, from 1989 to 1994, program officer and senior program officer at the NRC. His interests include nonlinear dynamics, order and disorder, and mathematics and statistics applications, particularly to biology and medicine.

Paulette A. Adams is Administrative Assistant to the Board on Biology. She is a graduate of Thames Valley University, London, England. Before joining the National Research Council she worked for several years in the British Civil Service, and for two years at the University of Houston College of Optometry. She is a member of the Institute of Qualified Private Secretaries, London, England.

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
×
Page 219
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
×
Page 220
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
×
Page 221
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
×
Page 222
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Information." National Research Council. 1996. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5141.
×
Page 223
Next: Acknowledgments »
The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence Get This Book
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In 1992 the National Research Council issued DNA Technology in Forensic Science, a book that documented the state of the art in this emerging field. Recently, this volume was brought to worldwide attention in the murder trial of celebrity O. J. Simpson. The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence reports on developments in population genetics and statistics since the original volume was published. The committee comments on statements in the original book that proved controversial or that have been misapplied in the courts. This volume offers recommendations for handling DNA samples, performing calculations, and other aspects of using DNA as a forensic tool—modifying some recommendations presented in the 1992 volume. The update addresses two major areas:

  • Determination of DNA profiles. The committee considers how laboratory errors (particularly false matches) can arise, how errors might be reduced, and how to take into account the fact that the error rate can never be reduced to zero.
  • Interpretation of a finding that the DNA profile of a suspect or victim matches the evidence DNA. The committee addresses controversies in population genetics, exploring the problems that arise from the mixture of groups and subgroups in the American population and how this substructure can be accounted for in calculating frequencies.

This volume examines statistical issues in interpreting frequencies as probabilities, including adjustments when a suspect is found through a database search. The committee includes a detailed discussion of what its recommendations would mean in the courtroom, with numerous case citations. By resolving several remaining issues in the evaluation of this increasingly important area of forensic evidence, this technical update will be important to forensic scientists and population geneticists—and helpful to attorneys, judges, and others who need to understand DNA and the law. Anyone working in laboratories and in the courts or anyone studying this issue should own this book.

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