This article describes the features of the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) Forensic Technology Center of Excellence's (FTCoE's) new "Emerging Forensic Research Webinar Series," which is intended to share the features, findings, and potential criminal justice benefits of new forensic research.
The webinar series began in February 2019 with a webinar on "Firearm and Toolmark Research." This was followed with webinars on toxicology and drugs, medico-legal death investigations, biology, and chemistry. More events are planned for later in 2019. Through the series page on the FTCoE website, the forensic community is encouraged to share ideas on the uses of emerging research in the forensic sciences. Through the webinars, knowledge about forensic science research and best practices is shared with a wide variety of stakeholders. Through the webinars, researchers provide information on their research to the criminal justice community, and the criminal justice community discusses how research will impact their future work. The interaction among forensic science researchers and forensic science practitioners informs researchers on challenges practitioners face that researchers might address, and researchers present recent research that has potential relevance to improvement in forensic policies and practices. Online access to materials and information is provided.