Project Grant 15PNIJ21GG04185RESS

The National Institute of Justice awarded a $499,902 Project Grant under the Forensics Training and Technical Assistance Program (CFDA 16.044) to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI International) to conduct a multi-phase research study on the performance and reliability of field color tests used by law enforcement and forensic laboratories. The key objectives of the research project are to: (1) comprehensively characterize the performance of routinely used field-based color tests; (2) assess...

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants program (CFDA 16.560) provides $120,000.00 to develop an improved forensic pollen analysis method. The project aims to enhance the use of forensic palynology (the study of pollen as trace evidence) by creating a library of unique lipid profiles and DNA barcodes for different plant species. This combined molecular approach using liquid...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (CFDA 16.560 - National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants) provides $216,195 to Sam Houston State University to establish a comprehensive reference collection and conduct research on electrical tape forensics. The project aims to characterize 160 electrical tape samples of different colors and end-uses using analytical methods such as FTIR spectroscopy, SEM-EDS, Py-GC-MS, and DART-MS. It...

This $179,968 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the CFDA program 16.560 "National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants" supports research to improve the reliability and consistency of forensic fire debris analysis. The research aims to develop a ground truth data set and testing protocol to assess factors influencing the pattern recognition and comparison process used by forensic fire debris analysts....

This Project Grant award from the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice will fund the development and assessment of proteomic tools for species identification in forensic casework using fur samples. Totaling $498,963, the award will support work from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025. Under the Forensics Training and Technical Assistance Program (CFDA 16.044), the University of California, Davis will receive $498,963 to develop protocols for...

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded a $659,287 project grant under the NIJ Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants program (CFDA 16.560) to Bode Cellmark Forensics, Inc. (Bode Technology) to evaluate methods for improving high-density SNP genotyping of degraded or compromised human bone samples for forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) investigations. The project aims to assess ancient DNA techniques and targeted SNP enrichment hybridization capture prior to...

This $630,560 federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (CFDA 16.560 - National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants) supports research to improve the identification of fire patterns generated from fire effects using advanced sensing and statistical analysis/machine learning techniques. The goal is to develop new approaches to objectively identify lines of demarcation and obscured patterns in post-fire investigations, which will...

This $980,527 federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (CFDA 16.560 - National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants) aims to enhance and expand the HirisPlex-S (HPS) forensic DNA phenotyping tool for predicting an individual's physical appearance traits such as eye, hair, and skin color. The key objectives are to: 1) develop quantitative prediction models to complement the existing HPS web-based tool, 2) utilize deep learning to...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the CFDA program 16.560 "National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants" aims to develop a protocol for obtaining the quantitative elemental profile of tire rubber and skid marks, initiate a database of tire rubber elemental compositions, and establish a statistical protocol to link skid marks to specific tires. The $299,344 award, with a performance period from January 1,...

This $110,966 Project Grant awarded by the National Institute of Justice (CFDA 16.560) to the University of Central Florida Board of Trustees, Office of Research (UCF) supports the development of a matrix-matched analytical standard for chemical profiling of human hair. The goal is to enable quantitative analysis of toxic metals and drug metabolites in hair using advanced forensic techniques like MALDI-MS imaging and LA-ICP-MS. This work will provide the forensic community with a reliable, rapid...