Dr. Max M. Houck is an international forensic expert with over 25 years of experience. Houck has experience in the private sector, academia, local government, and worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory Division. He has worked as a forensic anthropologist, a trace evidence analyst, a researcher, and has managed millions of dollars in grants and awards. Most recently, he was the inaugural Director of the Department of Forensic Sciences in Washington, D.C., overseeing 150 employees and managing the forensic science laboratory, the public health laboratory, and crime scene sciences for the nation''s capital.
Houck has worked on a number of mass casualty scenes, including the Branch Davidian Investigation and the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon. Widely published, Houck has dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and is the author and editor of numerous books. He is co-author of the best-selling Fundamentals of Forensic Science, Science of Crime Scenes, and Success with Expert Testimony, among others. He is the editor of the Advanced Forensic Science series of books. Houck is also founding co-editor of Forensic Science Policy and Management (the official journal of ASCLD), the only journal that addresses the management, policy, and administration of forensic science. Houck has served on numerous committees, including for the National Academies of Science, NIST, Interpol, The Royal Society, the Director of the FBI, and the White House. He is a popular public speaker and has given presentations at NASA, the Max Planck Institute, an Oxford Roundtable, as well as keynote talks at numerous international conferences. Houck has taught at several universities, including West Virginia University and University of Tampa.
His research topics include management, leadership, and policy implications for forensic organizations. Houck has a Bachelors and Masters degree in anthropology from Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry Summa Cum Laude from Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Dr Frank Crispino served for 25 years in the French Gendarmerie, one of the two State Police forces of France under military status. He retired with the rank of Colonel in 2012.
A graduate from the French Air Force and Gendarmerie Academies, he joined l''Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale (IRCGN), the Gendarmerie Forensic Institute, in 1993 to create the forensic anthropology department, as the core of the French Disaster Victim Identification Unit. Dr. Crispino is a graduate from the French War College (2003-2004), has a Ph.D. in forensic science from Lausanne University, School of Criminal Sciences (2006). He commanded two Criminal Investigation Departments at regional levels (serious/organized crimes and terrorism) in central and southwestern France (Bourges from 2002 to 2003 and Bordeaux from 2007 to 2011) and served as Deputy Head of the Antiterrorist Bureau at the General Headquarters of the French Gendarmerie in Paris (2003-2007), where he joined the G8 counter-terrorist group and other relevant EU bodies. He concluded his military career as representative of the Division General in charge of the Forensic and Intelligence Hub of the French Gendarmerie (2011-2012) to launch a new forensic academic curriculum in the Bachelor in Chemistry at l''Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires (UQTR). Professor Crispino is author or co-author of two books, 8 book chapters, more than 40 peer-reviewed articles.
He is the director of the Laboratoire de recherche en criminalistique (www.uqtr.ca/LRC) - Forensic Research Group - at the UQTR, regular researcher at the International Centre for Comparative Criminology (http://www.cicc.umontreal.ca/en). Terry McAdam is the Director of the Washington State Patrol Seattle Crime Laboratory. He has been a practicing forensic scientist for 39 years.
He began his career with the State Crime Laboratory in Northern Ireland where he worked for 10 years in the testing of blood alcohols, breath alcohol, toxicology, fire debris, explosives, and trace evidence,. In the United States he has worked in many other disciplines in forensic science including, drug analysis, bloodstain pattern interpretation, and crime scene reconstruction. He has attended over 300 crimes scenes, and was a major participant in the crime scenes and the trace evidence analysis associated with the Green River homicides. He has assessed many crime laboratories throughout the world and in 2014 he was the recipient from the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, of the inaugural Longhetti/Keaton Assessor Excellence Award.