My morning musings with my coffee on the couch today are filled with the ASCLD tasks on my “to-do” list. My day job was a bit busy this week so I pushed my ASCLD items over to the weekend. I should be able to knock them out quickly and then wander outside to do a little yardwork. My time as President ends with the close of the business meeting at the symposium and I will remain on the Board as Past President for the following year. I am really surprised at how quickly time has flown by. I have truly enjoyed coming back onto the Board and serving as President. For those of you who have never been on the Board, I highly recommend it. For those of you who have served before, give it some time and space, and serve a second round. This organization is more than just a group of people with a common career who get together once a year. It is an interactive society of professionals working toward some very specific goals. The purpose of this organization is to foster professional interests; assist the development of laboratory management principles and techniques; acquire, preserve and disseminate forensic based information; maintain and improve communications among crime laboratory directors; and to promote, encourage and maintain the highest standards of practice in the field. The Board took a look at the 2020-2021 strategic plan and evaluated ourselves, line by line, on how we are meeting the published goals. Soon we will post on the ASCLD website the new strategic plan along with the comments from the current Board on how we met or didn’t meet the various goals. There are some areas that we need to improve but I think overall we have done quite well. We should have the document ready for release in the very near future.

The Forensic Research Committee released Bulletin 8. Please see the link below. It is loaded with information on new innovation awards, Lightning Talks, and the Researchers Seeking Practitioners Study Form and database. Check out their website from time to time for exciting developments from the FRC. https://www.ascld.org/forensic-research-committee/

The ASCLD Forensic Research Committee is also proud to announce the next episode of a virtual “Lightning Talks” series to highlight new and emerging research in all areas of forensic science. Each episode will feature three short talks given by practitioners, researchers, and/or students. The next episode will be held on Thursday March 24th at 1:00 EST and will focus on Interlaboratory and Black Box Studies. It will feature talks by Jose Almirall from Florida International University on the importance of interlaboratory studies, Heidi Eldridge from the Research Triangle Institute on latent fingerprinting black box studies, and Philip Dunn from LGC Group on isotope ratio proficiency testing. The live event is limited to 100 people. To register, visit https://www.ascld.org/forensic-research-committee/

Last symposium in Boston, we heard about the new National Association of Forensic Laboratory Counsel (NAFLC) and was very impressed with their focus on the very specific legal issues we face in our laboratories. They have reached out and asked that we post the information for their annual meeting and I am very happy to do so. I have also sent the information to the staff in our Legal Office at my agency with hopes that they can attend. NAFLC will hold its 2022 Annual Training and Meeting at the Southwestern Institute for Forensic Sciences (SWIFS) in Dallas, TX from May 18 through 20, 2022. Non-members are encouraged to attend, but they MUST be an attorney advising a public forensic laboratory that primarily provides services to government or law enforcement agencies in order to be admitted to this training. Additional information, including the agenda, registration form, and hotel reservation link, may be found on NAFLC's website: https://www.naflc.org/meeting-and-events

Don’t forget to get registered for the Symposium in Reno! With COVID restrictions lifting, hopefully your agency travel restrictions are also easing. We moved the “Bring Your Own Slides” from an evening event to a lunch event. Please register to attend so we know how many to expect. It’s free! We also have the “Toast to a New Horizon of Possibilities” after-hour’s event with QIAGEN and Verogen as they celebrate our partnership in human identification and criminal justice. Enjoy cocktails and appetizers while you mingle with your ASCLD colleagues. This is also free!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Laura