Forensic Scientist

Forensic Scientist

LIsa Black

Cape Coral, FL

Female, 49

I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.

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Last Answer on July 21, 2022

Best Rated

What are the major duties and responsibilities.

Asked by Jessie over 3 years ago

That depends entirely on where you work and what your job is. If you’re a ballistics expert, you’ll spend your days looking at guns and ammunition. If you’re a DNA analyst, you’ll be in a lab with micro tubes. If you’re me, you spend a lot of time looking at fingerprints and sometimes go to crime or death scenes.

Hello,

How do you go back and re construct the last 24 hours of someone’s life

Asked by Margarita over 4 years ago

I’m sorry but I have no idea. that would be the detective’s job, not mine.

Best of luck!

Hi what job can i do in forensics that does not require pure math

Asked by Lamecia over 4 years ago

I don’t know what you mean by pure math. Most crime scene work, fingerprints, tool marks, serology, might need regular adding and subtracting, but I don’t know of any field that uses calculus or algebra. DNA analysis uses a lot of statistics and ballistics and traffic accident investigation might use physics and geometry. But those are the only examples I can think of.

Best of luck!

To my previous question, the victim claimed that her finger nail fell off during our fight but she bit them off and might also include my own DNA because she was hitting me but Bite mark is the best option and the finger nails were polished in red

Asked by Aj over 4 years ago

Well it's worth a try. However, you should be aware that bite marks are not usually accepted as reliable evidence in court any more.

Do you have any suggestions for a research topic in forensic science for a class project?

Asked by HG271 about 4 years ago

Wow, that’s a tough question—I can think of projects and experiments, but research....and what ages? I can ask my coworkers for suggestions.

If a attacker OC sprayed someone and robbed them is there chemical tests to see if the spray that was on the victims face and the Pepper spray on the suspect to see who did it

Asked by Question about 4 years ago

That’s a good question that I’m afraid I can’t answer. I’m sure there is some way to determine the chemicals used in pepper spray. But this would be affected by a) how long does it remain on the skin before the skin absorbs it and b) most forensic chemistry labs are set up to detect illegal drugs in urine, blood or gastric contents. Identifying any kind of poison or other substance may require equipment or reference databases they don’t have.

Proving it’s the same batch of pepper spray may or may not be possible. I”m not personally involved in this kind of testing, but I can assure you it is not like television. We had a series of cases and wanted to determine the exact composition of drugs with percentages of fentanyl, heroin etc. Turned out while nearly every crime lab can determine if a drug is present, there were only one or two labs in the entire country we could find that could determine percentages, and they charged an arm and a leg. 

Sorry I can’t be more help.

When you first started interviewing and working in the forensics field, what made you determine if the jobs you were looking at were right for you? I am going through that situation now.

Asked by Jason. B about 4 years ago

Usually job vacancies aren't that plentiful that you can be too choosy. Are all or most of the duties similar to what you want to do? Is the location acceptable to you (local, or someplace you wouldn't mind relocating to)? Is there a good chance you will meet their expectations sufficiently that they will offer you a job? If the answer to all three is yes, then I would suggest you take it. If the answer to only the first two is yes, try anyway.

Best of luck to you!