Iowa State’s Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE) was recently honored by the American Statistical Association.

CSAFE received the Statistical Partnerships among Academe, Industry and Government Award on July 29. The award recognizes partnerships between universities, industry and government to promote the use of statistics in policy. 

“For us it’s very important, because that’s our mission,” said Alicia Carriquiry, CSAFE director and distinguished professor of statistics. “Our mission is to promote the principle use of statistics in forensics, so this pretty much says you guys are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.”

The American Statistical Association recognized both Carriquiry and Heike Hofmann, professor of statistics, as key contributors. 

The award acknowledges CSAFE’s cooperative agreement with NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. CSAFE is funded by NIST and they are starting their fourth year of a five year cooperative agreement.

“The cooperative agreement means that we try to compliment and collaborate on the research we carry out,” Carriquiry said.

Their collaboration with NIST allows them resources and ways to connect with their community that they may not have access to otherwise.

“A lot of our techniques need advanced technology…and a lot of crime labs don’t have access to these kind of advanced methods,” Hofmann said.

CSAFE is a consortium of four universities with Iowa State being the lead. The other three being the University of California Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Virginia.

The center was established in 2015 as a way to apply more objective science in the forensics field when dealing with human evidence.

“It was decided there was a need for more science in forensics science,” Carriquiry said.

The CSAFE team researches ways to create reliable, objective and valid techniques in the field that can be supported by statistics.

Currently, Hofmann is working with bullet evidence. She is researching ways to help determine the probability that two bullets were fired from the same gun.

Hofmann said they have a good collaboration with the Story County Sheriff’s Office who are helping with a large scale study to track firearms over time.

“Never in a million years did I think that going to a shooting range would be part of my job description,” Hofmann said.

Not only do the statisticians work with bullets, but they also work with shoes, cartridge cases, fingerprints, handwriting, digital research and human factors. They also work on finding the best ways to present evidence to jurors and forensic professionals. 

Students from undergraduates to post-docs help out at the center. Over the summer, the center even had a few high school students involved.

Looking forward, CSAFE hopes to continue their work with NIST.

A lot of their research projects are long term, so extending past the five year contract with NIST would give more time to translate their research into practice, Carriquiry said.