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[May 2016 Update: Statisticians are encouraged to apply to serve on OSAC here: https://www.nist.gov/forensics/osac-application.cfm.

Other updates to the appointments

• Abhyuday Mandal appointed to Digital/Multimedia Scientific Area Committee
• Mark Lancaster serving on Questioned Documents subcommittee

January 2017 Update: Here are more recent appointments

• Ping Ma, University of Georgia, Facial Identification Subcommittee
• Liqiang Ni, University of Central Florida, Seized Drugs Subcommittee
• Clifford Spiegelman, Texas A&M University, Gunshot Residue Subcommittee] 

NIST this week announced the final appointments to the the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC), the NIST-administered body to strengthen forensic science through the identification and development of standards and guidelines. OSAC is composed of an oversight board, three resources committees, five committees, 24 subcommittees (see schematic below) and totals several hundred appointments of forensic science practitioners and administrators, researchers, professional association representatives, and industry representatives.

Recognizing the importance of statistics to bolstering the forensic sciences, statisticians are well represented in OSAC. This summer, Karen Kafadar, Hal Stern, Bruce Weir, and William Guthrie were appointed to, respectively, the Forensic Science Standards Board, the Physics/Pattern Committee, the Biology/DNA Committee, and the Chemistry/Instrumental Analysis Committee. On November 3, members of most of the subcommittees were announced and the following statisticians were among the appointees:

• Sandy Zabell appointed to the  Biological Data Interpretation and Reporting subcommittee
• Lee-Ann Hayek appointed to Wildlife Forensics subcommittee
• Martin Wells appointed to Geological Materials subcommittee
• Alicia Carriquiry appointed to Materials (Trace) subcommittee
• Max Morris appointed to Firearms/Toolmarks subcommittee
• Chris Saunders appointed to Questioned Documents subcommittee
• Haonan Wang appointed to Bloodstain and Pattern Analysis subcommittee
• Hari Iyer appointed to Friction Ridge subcommittee
• Connie Borror appointed to Toxicology subcommittee
• Mark Johnson appointed to Fire Scene and Explosives subcommittee
• James Curran invited as guest to DNA Analysis 1 subcommittee and as an affiliate of the Probabilistic Genotyping working group of the Biology subcommittee.
  

Statisticians have also been appointed to other important forensic science panels. In January, Stephen Fienberg was named to the newly established National Committee on Forensic Science (NCFS), a federal committee jointly overseen by NIST and the U.S. Department of Justice. Following her appointment this fall to the Forensic Science Standards Board, Kafadar was named to the NCFS Scientific Inquiry and Research Subcommittee. In October, Stern was appointed to the advisory panel for the AAAS project, Forensic Science Assessments: A Quality and Gap Analysis.

Many of the above statisticians are members of the ASA Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Forensic Statistics, much of whose activities are described on the ASA website, Promoting Forensic Science Reform. Earlier this year, the committee submitted written comments to NCFS "to enhance scientific thinking to benefit the practice of forensic science." For more details, see this May 2014 ASA Community blog entry, ASA Makes Recommendations on Forensic Science Reform for National Commission on Forensic Science.

For more on the ASA forensic science reform efforts, see these ASA Community blog entries:

• Senator Leahy Introduces Forensic Science Reform bill, 2/2/11
• ASA President Sends Letters to Senate Committee Chairmen on Forensic Science Reform, 4/4/11
• Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Holds Second Hearing on Forensic Science, 4/4/12
• Senate Science Committee Chair Introduces Bill to Advance Forensic Science Reform, 7/19/12
• Ron Wasserstein's ASA at 175 - Improving Forensic Science, 3/2/14
• Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Advances Forensic Science Bill with Bipartisan Support, 4/11/14 
• NIST Issues Call for Applications to Organization of Scientific Area Committees; Part of Forensic Science Reform, 4/13/14

See other ASA Science Policy blog entries. For ASA science policy updates, follow @ASA_SciPol on Twitter.