PhD Candidate | Trent University, Ontario, Canada | Forensic Epigenetics

Irina did not set out to work in forensic epigenetics. She set out to give people back their names.

During her undergraduate studies in Human Biology, she arranged an internship in Szczecin, Poland, working on the identification of World War II victims from skeletal remains. She was in the lab, running analyses, contributing to work that moved in one direction: toward the families still waiting for answers. She never witnessed a confirmed match between a victim's DNA and a living relative. That didn't diminish it.

"I knew early on that helping bring closure to people after death is the most fulfilling path for me."

Her master's took her to the ruins of a 15th-century church in Spain, where mitochondrial DNA analysis revealed something unexpected: individuals buried side by side, long assumed to be related, were not maternally linked. One pair was a young woman and a very young child. The assumption about why they were buried together turned out to be wrong. That is often where the most important questions begin.

Now at Trent University in Ontario, Irina works in forensic epigenetics, asking whether DNA methylation patterns, specifically the changes that occur in those patterns after death, can be used to estimate the post-mortem interval. PMI estimation is one of the most persistent unsolved challenges in forensic investigation. Epigenetics offers a molecular approach that barely existed as a forensic tool a decade ago. Collaborating with REST[ES], Canada's only taphonomic facility for human remains, she has spent three years collecting soft tissue samples from human cadavers to test the method. She has validated it in pigs. She is now working to confirm it holds in humans.

Her poster at ISHI 37 will present those early human findings, but she is looking forward to the people as much as the science: new connections, emerging molecular methods, forensic genomics, and researchers who are asking the same kinds of questions she is.

PhD Candidate, Year 3 | Virginia Commonwealth University | Biomedical Sciences - Genetics Discipline

Simone was studying molecular biology when she read about a case where DNA from decades-old evidence had identified a suspect more than twenty years after the crime. The techniques she was learning in the classroom had just become real in a way they hadn't been before.

"Science was no longer abstract; it became a tool for answering questions that matter, and I knew then that forensic science was the path I wanted to pursue."

The question driving her doctoral research at VCU is one that STR profiling was not designed to answer: what else can biological evidence tell us about a person, beyond who they are? Simone works with microRNAs, short non-coding RNA molecules that reflect dynamic physiological states, to estimate body composition traits like weight and muscularity from dried whole blood and saliva samples. In cases where a DNA profile exists but no database match does, that additional biological information could mean the difference between a lead and a dead end.

She came to this work through undergraduate research on RNA and aging, then a master's at Boston University with Dr. Robin Cotton studying microRNAs in body fluid identification. Each step built on the one before. At ISHI 37, she will present findings on promising markers identified through massively parallel sequencing, early correlations with body composition traits, and next steps toward machine learning models for prediction.

What Simone wants from ISHI goes beyond the poster session. She is eager to attend workshops on SNP genotyping and forensic genetic genealogy, topics she has started exploring in her own research, and she is particularly interested in how those technologies get validated and integrated into casework. She also wants to sit down with practitioners and ask them directly: what does it actually take to move research into a forensic workflow? It is conversations like this that ISHI is perfect for.

PhD Candidate | University of North Texas Health Science Center | Biomedical Sciences - Genetics Discipline

Elizabeth's senior year of high school was supposed to include graduation and prom. Instead, her grandfather passed away, she traveled to Australia for the funeral while wildfires swept the country, and came home to the beginning of a global pandemic. Her internships were canceled. Her college experience started on Zoom. She describes that period simply: she felt lost.

She found her footing through research, taking on whatever she could get access to during COVID restrictions: a mentorship studying Herpes Simplex Virus, a genetics project on Cryptococcus neoformans, stream gauging in Laguna Bacalar. Eventually she joined a forensic anthropology recovery team in Tennessee, working searches with the State Medical Examiner. She recovered human remains. At one scene, a victim's mother arrived. Elizabeth writes of that moment: "all I remember was hearing her scream." Field work, she decided, was not for her. The weight of why the work mattered was something she carried back to the laboratory with her.

The question driving her doctoral research at VCU is one that STR profiling was not designed to answer: what else can biological evidence tell us about a person, beyond who they are? Simone works with microRNAs, short non-coding RNA molecules that reflect dynamic physiological states, to estimate body composition traits like weight and muscularity from dried whole blood and saliva samples. In cases where a DNA profile exists but no database match does, that additional biological information could mean the difference between a lead and a dead end.

She is now at UNT Health's Center for Human Identification, building a dissertation on low-pass whole genome sequencing for forensic use, evaluating WGS performance on less costly benchtop platforms and at DNA inputs below manufacturer recommendations. Early results show genotype accuracies exceeding 99.8% across a range of inputs from 0.1 to 10 ng. The question she is working to answer is a practical one: how far below recommended inputs can you push the method and still produce results you can stand behind in court?

She has been to ISHI before. Two years ago, as a first-year PhD student, she presented Rapid DNA research at the student showcase. She was nervous. The community made her feel welcome.

"That experience is exactly why I want to return as a student ambassador. I want to be able to create the same environment for other students, one where they feel welcomed, supported and able to share their work."

That is what she is coming back for: to give to the community what was given to her, to connect with professionals in forensic genomics and advanced sequencing, and to keep building the network she started two years ago. She loves, she adds, that ISHI creates opportunities to connect outside the traditional academic setting. Whether that is at a networking event or the conference outing, she intends to be there.

PhD Candidate | Sam Houston State University | Forensic Science

In seventh grade, a forensic scientist visited Daniel's science class and gave a demonstration. That was enough. The direct line between careful scientific analysis and outcomes in the justice system was visible to him at thirteen years old, and he has been following it since.

His research at Sam Houston State lives at two of the harder edges of what forensic DNA interpretation can currently do. The first examines DNA transfer, persistence, prevalence, and recovery in biting and strangulation scenarios involving cohabitants or intimate partners, exactly the situations where ongoing close contact means background DNA is already everywhere, making it genuinely difficult to distinguish what was there before from what was deposited during the alleged act. The second addresses high-order mixture interpretation when contributors are first-degree relatives, where the genetic overlap between contributors pushes conventional analysis past its limits.

What connects both is a shift in the question being asked. Not just whose DNA is present, but what the evidence can tell us about what happened. The framework is Bayesian, and the goal is to build the data that makes activity level evaluations scientifically defensible rather than speculative.

"I aim to generate data that can support more robust and scientifically grounded activity level propositions. Ultimately, my goal is to improve the interpretation of complex DNA evidence in real casework."

He arrives at ISHI 37 with a plan. The workshop on likelihood ratios and probabilistic genotyping maps directly to his research. He wants to hear from the leaders working on activity level problems, get feedback on his own work, and build the professional connections that will follow him into his career. His poster will present his DNA-TPPR research on simulated strangulation and binding scenarios.

M.S. Student | George Washington University | Forensic Molecular Biology

Mia decided in high school that she was moving across the country to attend VCU's forensic biology program. She had very little exposure to the field at that point. She was certain anyway. Graduate school confirmed it.

Her research at GW addresses a problem that anyone who has processed crime scene evidence will recognize: rootless telogen hairs. Naturally shed hairs are among the most commonly collected items at crime scenes, but without a root, the DNA available in the shaft is sparse and heavily degraded. Commercial forensic extraction kits were not designed to capture fragments this small. The standard workaround is mitochondrial DNA, which tolerates degradation better, but offers less discriminatory power than STRs.

Mia optimized a DNA extraction method specifically built for small, highly degraded nuclear DNA fragments from rootless hairs, using equipment already available in most crime labs. She processed 130 hair samples and amplified extracts with the smallest commercially available STR amplicons. The results substantially increase DNA recovery from a sample type that has historically been set aside.

ISHI was not on her radar until Kiersten and Rory told her what it was actually like. Not the program description. The experience: the workshops students usually can't afford to attend, the way a small field becomes a room full of people you have been wanting to meet. She met the rest of last year's ambassador cohort at AAFS in New Orleans, and was struck by how close-knit they had become. She wants that. She is coming for it.

She has already committed to the expert testimony workshop. Communicating science clearly to a lay audience is not a soft skill to Mia. It is central to everything she wants to do in this field. She also wants something ISHI is uniquely positioned to give her: a real conversation with a working analyst. At most conferences, she says, she ends up talking to professors and fellow students. At ISHI, the analysts are in the room.

"The value of laboratory results depends not only on their accuracy, but on the ability to communicate them. Translating scientific ideas to a lay audience is extremely challenging, and I believe that having a support system to promote clear and consistent testimony is essential."

She posts about forensics on social media, talks about it until the people around her change the subject, and wants eventually to work in a teaching and training role in the field.

Being an ambassador, she says, is a chance to share her research with a community that is actually interested. Her friends and family, she admits, have heard enough.