RTI International, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Forensic Technology Center of Excellence (FTCoE) present the proceedings of the 2015 Impression, Pattern, and Trace Evidence Symposium held August 25-27 as the first joint symposium to promote collaboration, facilitate knowledge transfer, and share best practices and policies for the impression, pattern, and trace evidence forensic science communities.
The symposium included presentations by leading experts in their respective fields, focusing on topics that included the latest developments and novel approaches to fingerprint, shoeprint, and tire-tread evidence; questioned documents; bloodstain pattern analysis; biometrics; firearms/toolmarks; digital photography; and fibers, paint, tape, and other types of evidence. Also addressed were error rates, testimony, interpretation/reporting, case studies, and technology applications. This report provides abstracts for nine workshops held on the following topics: 1) polarized light and infrared microscopes; 2) development of a reasonable minimum documentation standard in latent prints; 3) probability and statistics for forensics; 4) research proposal writing in bridging the gap between “great ideas” and funded projects; 5) addressing cognitive bias in forensic examinations; 6) petrographic identification of soil minerals; 7) forensic examination of fabric impressions; 8) expert witness testimony techniques for forensic examiners in a post-Daubert/NAS report and current NCES environment; and 9) juror-centric approach to expert testimony. The conference was attended by about 600 people from 22 countries.