Hi, everybody, my name is Dr. Claire Glynn and I am a faculty member within the Forensic Science department here at the University of New Haven. Today, I'm just going to give you a brief presentation about what it is exactly that a Forensic Scientist does and what exactly our Forensic Science program entails.
So as you're trying to make this decision of whether or not you should major in Forensic Science, there's a few key questions that I find are really important to ask yourself to see whether or not it's suited for you. So things like, "Do you like to look for small pieces to solve the big puzzle? Are you observant? Are you well-organized? Are you methodical? Do you like to pay attention to small details?" And ultimately, and one of the most important ones is, "Are you a patient person?" Because what we see on the TV show that completes a crime within 30 minutes is not a true reflection of what a Forensic Scientist does.
Our work is quite labor intensive. It's often very time-consuming. But it's always very methodical. You have to have a lot of patience to work through these steps. Now, the thing that I like to remind students most about is that Forensic Science is, first and foremost, a science. Forensic Science is built upon the very foundations of Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Mathematics. So you should first of all like these subjects, but you should also excel in them. And you should have a really good skill set in these foundational subjects in order to become a successful Forensic Scientist.
So what exactly does a Forensic Scientist do? Well, first, you will learn how to first recognize that something is potentially forensic evidence and that it has some value to be analyzed, then we'll teach you how to collect and preserve that evidence for submission to the crime laboratory. And then we'll teach you how to analyze and interpret the various types of evidence that come into the crime lab. Here, you'll be performing lots of different experimental techniques, a lot of different instrumentation is used, and a lot of very innovative technology. Ultimately, then we'll teach you how to present what your findings are in the form of expert witness testimony to a judge and jury within a courtroom.
Now, Forensic Science is not just one subject, it is a whole realm of different sub-disciplines within Forensic Science. This can range from Drug Analysis to Firearm Evidence to DNA Analysis and Fingerprinting. What I've presented here on the slide with these topics is really just a sampling of some of them. There really are many, many more that could be added to this list. But ultimately, you will make the choice of which route you would like to go down of whether or not you want to be a Drug Analyst or a DNA Analyst, or whatever it is you choose to do.
So as I said, Forensic Science is first and foremost a science. Therefore, our program involves a lot of core science courses. We begin with things like General Chemistry, and Calculus, and Physics and Biology. And then we also introduce other subjects such as Oral Communication that will help you communicate your findings to a courtroom. And also a good introduction on the criminal justice system, which will give you knowledge of what the criminal justice process is.
Now, at the end of your sophomore year, you will make the choice of whether or not you're going to go the Biology concentration route, or indeed the Chemistry concentration route. Now everyone regardless of their concentration takes the same core science classes. But the only difference between the Biology concentration and the Chemistry concentration are these three courses here. So Biology concentration, students take Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry. It's important that they take these because if you want to be a DNA Analyst at a crime lab in the future, you have to have taken these courses. Or if you want to go the Chemistry concentration route, you'll take Calculus 3, Physical Chemistry 1 or Physical Chemistry Two. So really is just a difference of these three courses. All the other courses are the same for all of our Forensic Science students.
Now while those are our major required science courses, we have our major required Forensic Science courses as well. So when your freshman year you will have Intro to Forensic Science, 1 and 2. These really are great courses because they give you a tasting of what each of the sub-disciplines are within forensic science. So one week we could be talking about body fluid analysis, the next week, you could be talking about drug analysis. So it really gives you an introduction as to which topic you really like or which one you're drawn most to.
In your sophomore year, you'll take your first hands-on laboratory class in Forensic Science, which is our Physical Methods of Law. Here, you'll learn how to handle and document forensic evidence and look at things like fingerprints and hair evidence.
In your junior year, you'll take Forensic Biology with lab whereby you'll learn how to identify and interpret all the different body fluids, and also the full process of DNA profiling from the very beginning right to the end of generating a DNA profile. Then, you'll have your Forensic Chemistry with lab class, which involves a lot of the chemistry-related sub-disciplines such as Drug Analysis, Forensic Toxicology, and Arson and Explosives Investigation, and you'll learn a lot of different hands-on methods and tools and procedures in order to analyze these different evidence types.
Then, you'll have in your senior year, your Forensic Seminar class, and this is a great class with a major topic in this class is Expert Witness Testimony, and how to compile your reports from your findings. Then lastly, you have your Crime Scene Investigation class, which is really a culmination of all your prior classes, whereby throughout the semester, you learn how to process the crime scene and to collect the evidence and preserve it. And ultimately, the course finishes with a crime scene practical, which is held at our crime scene house whereby you spend the whole day processing a staged or mock crime scene from beginning to end. So the students really love that practical course in their senior year.
Lastly, you'll have your capstone experience, which can either be a research project that is mentored by a faculty member or indeed you will get out into the field and do an internship with one of our many industry partners. Now, we do have a range of elective classes that you can choose from to supplement your education here with us. And this can really be anything you want from Forensic Toxicology to Forensic Fingerprinting to one of our newest and most exciting special topics courses, which is Investigation of Animal Cruelty.
Now, this list that I've presented here is not our entire list. We change up our elective classes every semester, and indeed every year because we like to create new and innovative courses that are really in line with the evolving field of Forensic Science and all the new exciting techniques that are coming out. Now our program is a fully accredited FEPAC program. "FEPAC" stands for the Forensic Science Education Program Accreditation Commission. And this is a really important accreditation for us because it ensures that we are keeping our standards extremely high, that our courses are rigorous and well-advanced, and that we're ultimately preparing graduates from our program to be ready for industry upon graduation.
So many Crime Lab Directors are looking for applicants that are really only coming from FEPAC-accredited programs. I mean, interestingly, University of New Haven has the largest and longest-running FEPAC-accredited program here in the United States. Now, for extra time with us throughout the full four years, we'll engage in many different high-impact practices, some of them ranging from first-year seminars to living-learning communities, but also things like study-abroad programs, faculty-mentored research, and indeed our internships.
Now, our study-abroad programs are really exciting opportunities to get immersed in your field of study, so immersed in Forensic Science, but also to gain an international perspective of what that industry is, which is really something nice to be able to put onto your resume, and certainly interesting to potential employers in the future that you've gone abroad and experienced the industry over there. Now while you do have the opportunity, of course, to go to our Prato campus in Italy for a semester in the forensic science program, we actually do offer numerous opportunities to do short summer study-abroad, or indeed over the winter intersession summer study-abroad opportunities. We've gone all over the world in recent years.
This summer, we were planning to go to Barcelona and Spain to experience the Forensic Science industry there. While in the past I've taken students to Ireland and experienced the Forensic Science industry there and done many different field projects as well. So hopefully in the future, we'll be offering many more exciting opportunities to go to various locations all over the world.
Now, faculty-mentored research is one of my favorite aspects of my work at the University. Because it means that I get to have hands-on experiences with individual students through a research project. So you can engage in faculty-mentored research through a number of different opportunities such as your capstone research project or if you're in the Honors program, you will be doing an Honors Thesis Research Project, or we have our Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships or "SURF," whereby you come in for 10 weeks over the summer and are fully dedicated to your own individual research project.
Doing research really gives you the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member. But ultimately, it ensures that you're becoming proficient in the particular skills of your particular research project, which is really great to have moving forward whether or not you want to go into graduate school or indeed directly into the industry. Now we encourage many of our research students to submit abstracts to many of the regional, national, and international conferences that are held in relation to Forensic Science.
And we always have a great representation of our students at these. Most often we're going to the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists Annual Meeting, or indeed, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting, which is held in a different location with across the United States every single year. These conferences are a great way for the students to interact and network with industry professionals. Approximately 5,000 Forensic Scientists attend the American Academy meeting every year. So it's a great opportunity to make those connections with the industry partners and to really show them everything that you know from your research.
Now, with our internships, the list that I have here or the images that I have here really is only a sampling of the many, many different industry partners that we have. We have great success of placing our students are places like the FBI, or the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but also places like Yale University, where which is just located just down the street from us, within their School of Medicine within the department of Pathology. We send numerous students there every year, to work with the Pathologists there to gain some hands-on experience, and what exactly a pathologist starts.
Now, ultimately, graduates from our program are continually thinking about where they're going to go in their careers, and whether or not they're going to go on to graduate school. We find that approximately 50% of our students go directly into the industry, while the other 50% go on to graduate school via a Master's program or indeed a Ph.D. program. In recent years, we've had great success with many of our graduating students moving directly into Ph.D. programs across the country. Now, this really is a testament to the quality of the education that those students are graduating with. But also in terms of the skill sets that we're providing them with, with various research projects and things like that, that gets them entry into Ph.D. programs.
Now while you can go and work at crime laboratories across the country, there are other law enforcement agencies that you are well-suited to go and work at. But also there's things-- there's places like biotechnology firms and pharmaceutical companies that really love to hire students or our graduates with a Forensic Science undergraduate degree because they know that not only does that graduate have a solid applied science background, but they've also been taught the critical thinking skills that these types of companies love to see in applicants.
Now, lastly, I'll just finish off with a brief kind of introduction of who our faculty are. We are a very large department with all of these full-time faculty there every day, all day every day to work with the students. Now we are headed up by our Department Chair Professor Tim Palmbach, who is both nationally and internationally recognized within the industry. He's had a very successful, illustrious career, working with many different law enforcement agencies.
But then we also have our full-time faculty that have a range of different experiences and skill sets and specializations. It really is phenomenal the variety of specializations that our faculty has, ranging from trace evidence to crime scene investigation to wildlife forensics, so drove chemistry in the skeletal remains, really the list goes on. It would be tough to find a faculty member that doesn't have some sort of experience in a particular self-discipline within Forensic Science. It really is phenomenal to see the range of experiences that we have.
And ultimately this makes it a better experience for the student because they're gaining a much broader education on the variety of different subject distance that there are. Now, I'll just finish off if anyone has any questions for me. I'm more than happy to answer any of your questions at any time. My name is Dr. Claire Glynn. You can reach me at cglynn@new haven.edu. Just shoot me an email and I'm more than happy to help or answer any further questions such in my bath. I hope you all have a great day. Thank you.