The Forensic Science Education Blog

While pursuing a career in forensics, you may find yourself discovering a specialization within your area of study that you feel compelled to explore and research further. For those who have an idea of where they want to focus their forensic studies as well as those who may not know yet, you’re in the right place! Here is a variety of exclusive stories from nationally recognized forensic experts and top advocates from varying professional fields in the forensic community.

If you’re unable to peel yourself off of the sofa when the crime show “Bones” appears on FOX, you may be one of many individuals fascinated by forensic anthropology (or forensic archaeology, which this show also features). “Bones” is expected to start its ninth season this fall, a testament to the strong interest that exists for a scientific field that requires attention to detail and particular (and perhaps even peculiar!) knowledge of the human body.

Forensic psychologists investigate the psychological influences in civil, criminal, and family courts to help put diverse cases to rest in the criminal justice system. For most prospective students, knowing which subject to pursue in their studies can be a difficult decision to make. Thankfully, there are a multitude of resources at their disposal to help guide them toward their next career move.

Forensic nurses are a vital source for civil and criminal investigations. Trained in both health care and law, these specialized nurses provide care to victims of traumatic crime cases while simultaneously obtaining vital medical evidence that can be used later in the civil and criminal courts.  Forensic nurses typically work in collaborative environments such as hospitals, jails, and correction departments.

Even if you’re familiar with some of the different careers in forensics, you may not know the specific paths that lead to them, or the options and decision points that present themselves along the way. So, we’ve carved out a section of our blog to provide very detailed, step-by-step, descriptions of how to become everything from a forensic accountant to a forensic psychologist. Like many career paths, forensics career paths can be complex and nuanced, and are rarely “one size fits all”, so we’ve attempted to break down the major decision points, and clarify the essential component skills, experiences, and educational qualifications for each path, along with the personality traits, likes and dislikes that might make one career a better fit than another.

Often times, students choose a college or major without understanding much about who might be instructing them and guiding their educational experience. We’d like to change that. While we can’t feasibly profile every forensics professor out there, we certainly aim to surface the best ones. To that end, we’ve carved out this section of our blog to host a growing collection of “top professors” lists, each researched and curated by the www.forensicscolleges.com/ staff. Since every top forensic professor relies on the support of a college or university, we take care to identify each professor’s institution and department as part of their profile. We also describe why they made the list – was it a novel approach, student achievement, exceptional social connectedness, cutting edge forensics research, or a clever application of new instructional technologies that made them stand out?