The workshop, which will be held at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office in Pittsburgh, PA, will focus primarily on the implementation of blinding in forensic proficiency testing. It will also address contextual bias in casework and task-relevant vs. task-irrelevant information. The workshop will bring together quality managers and laboratory directors from forensic laboratories (both those that have successfully implemented blinding and those that are in the process of implementation or are just interested in learning more about it), along with academic researchers from CSAFE, the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence. CSAFE researchers will provide expertise in experimental design, statistics, and psychology as they relate to blinding in forensic laboratories. The goals of the workshop are to support the implementation of blinding in forensic laboratories through onsite presentations and discussion, as well as to produce a meeting report documenting best practices that can be disseminated to a larger audience.

Register Here 

Lodging

A hotel block is available at Homewood Suites by Hilton in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Contact: Corin Giglio, Director of Sales, 412-500-7883

Schedule

Thursday

8:00am             Registration and breakfast

8:30am            Welcome

9:00am            Opening session

10:00am          Coffee break

10:20am          Panel presentation: Implementing Blind testing 

11:20am           Breakout session: Issues to consider

12:00pm          Lunch

1:00pm            Panel presentation:  Lab-University partnerships

2:00pm           Breakout session: Facilitating inter-lab discussion

3:30pm            Coffee Break

4:00pm            Discussion: Issues raised in Breakout Session

5:30pm            Break

6:30pm            Dinner

Friday

8:00am            Breakfast

8:30am            Review and synthesis of comments from previous day with focus on identifying key lessons learned, best practices, research needs, and practical

                         needs moving forward.

10:30am          Breakout session: Future work/projects

11:30am           Closing remarks