AAFS 2026

S1: Young Forensic Scientist Forum (YFSF): Unmasking the Voodoo — Empowering the Next Generation of Truth-Seekers

The mission of the YFSF is to provide education, mentorship, and resources to students and champion young forensic scientists in order to promote interest and longevity in the field while encouraging participation and advancement within the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Learning Objective:

The YFSF offers students and young professionals the opportunity to interact with professionals in the forensic science community as they begin their careers. This session presents attendees with the chance to learn about the multitude of careers available in forensic science as well as develop professional skills that are essential for the job-hunting process. Our mission is to provide the education, mentorship, and resources necessary to champion students and young forensic scientists to promote interest, membership, and participation with AAFS and the forensic science community for years to come.

Impact Statement:

The YFSF provides students and young professionals with less than five years of experience an opportunity to network, collaborate, and learn from fellow peers and experts in the field. This session will prepare attendees for a successful career in their discipline of choice and allow them to look from the outside-in as they evaluate themselves and their future impact on forensic science. Our mission is to provide education, mentorship, and resources to students and burgeoning forensic scientists in order to promote interest and longevity in the field and to encourage participation and advancement in the AAFS.

Program Description:

This year, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) is celebrating 78 years of global engagement. The overall theme of the conference is Back to the Basics: The Fundamentals of Forensic Science. In the past few years, we have seen more people exonerated for a multitude of reasons, including fallacious science, improper investigation and analysis, and misrepresentation of results. AAFS President Joanna Collins' plan is to focus on the ethical application of science, standards development and implementation, implementation of the scientific method, and a duty to remain unbiased. Our Special Session theme, Unmasking the Voodoo: Empowering the Next Generation of Truth-Seekers, was chosen to invigorate young forensic scientists and demonstrate how education and training play a vital role in the success of forensic science. This full-day session will show young forensic scientists that their contribution matters and that the decisions they make today can have a positive impact on the scientific community at large. 

This year, the YFSF is excited to present an outstanding group of speakers. These distinguished presenters have been carefully selected to provide exceptional mentorship to attendees through topics such as how to use standards to increase your confidence, pathways for forensic nurses, a path to leadership, and how research plays an integral role in forensic science. The session will also include thoughtful demonstrations on assessing one's professional goals, establishing what success looks like for a young forensic scientist, and thinking about one's responsibilities as a mentor and leader as one advances into a career. The YFSF Special Session provides an inclusive atmosphere for young forensic scientists to have the opportunity for professional growth/development and scientific engagement with esteemed colleagues.

Through these presentations, attendees will hear from experienced practitioners as they discuss their extensive education, training, and experiences that have led to success in their field of study. These presentations include case-driven research, innovative methodology, scientific studies, and personal stories. Through this session, the YFSF aims to integrate young professionals into the field as they begin their journey into forensic science. The YFSF offers two additional opportunities for young professionals and students: the Bring Your Own Posters (BYOP) Session and the Bring Your Own Slides (BYOS) Session. We are excited to announce that, for the fourth year, we have collaborated with The Center for Forensic Science Research and Education (CFSRE) to honor and award two outstanding scientists for their contribution to forensic science. Finally, the session will host a resume review workshop, so do not forget to update your resume and bring printed copies with you to the session!

The YFSF Outstanding Poster Award

This award is designed to acknowledge and promote research contributions to the forensic science community by young forensic scientists. To be considered for the award, authors must be non-members, Student Affiliates, or Trainee Affiliates within AAFS. During the submission process authors should indicate that their posters are to be considered for the awards. Further, the presenting author must be present during the YFSF Poster Session at the conference. Judging will be based on the following criteria: poster appearance, poster content, and quality of presentation. Questions? Contact the YFSF Committee at yfsfchair@aafs.org.

The YFSF Outstanding Poster Award is sponsored by The Center for Forensic Science Research and Education (CFSRE) — an organization that provides education, training, and research that advances the capability, acceptance, and integrity of forensic science as it informs public health and public safety missions.

Recipients

• 2025 – Abigail Noll and Kate Collette (Bio's below)
• 2024 – Haley Murphy and Leticia Bodo
• 2023 – Kaylee Morton and Joseph Zemmels

2025 YFSF Outstanding Poster Award Winners

Abigail Noll

Abigail Noll is originally from Buffalo, NY but resides in Pittsburgh, PA. She graduated from Duquesne University with her B.S in Biochemistry and is currently finishing her M.S in Forensic Science and Law from the same university. Abigail wants to pursue a career in forensic toxicology in the future. Her master's research entitled "Identification and Quantification of Illicit Drugs in Blood using Stir Bar Sorptive Extraction and LC-QQQ-MS" introduces an alternative yet effective extraction method into the field of forensic toxicology. By utilizing polymer-coated magnetic stir bars, drugs can be extracted at sufficient recovery rates at a lower financial and environmental cost. One polymer-coated magnetic stir bar can perform 100 extractions, equivalent to 100 single-use solid phase extraction columns, before suffering degradation. The technique also requires far less solvent waste than standards methods like solid-phase extraction. Victims and their grieving families would receive justice and closure by furthering research in drug extraction techniques that are more efficient, more sustainable, and more cost and time effective.

Kate Collette

Kate Collette is a first-year master's student at Northern Arizona University in the Department of Anthropology. Her focus is archaeology and her master's research involves the use of computer vision (CV) for the identification of age and sex in skeletonized human remains. CV is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence which falls under the umbrella of "deep learning", a type of machine learning that employs neural network algorithms inspired by the human brain to solve complex problems using large training datasets. For her project, Kate is collecting digital images of skeletonized human remains from archaeological contexts housed at the Sicán National Museum in the Lambayeque region of Northern Peru. These images will be fed into a deep learning algorithm called a convolutional neural network (CNN) to train a model that can predict age and sex classifications from images of the cranial and innominate bones. Kate hopes that in the future CV models like hers can be used to instantly estimate biological profiles for in-field analysis of skeletonized remains from contexts including bioarchaeology, humanitarian forensic action, and compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). She was thrilled to meet some of the first researchers to ever study and publish on age estimation from dry bone images using CNNs at the 2025 AAFS conference, and to see how other researchers are employing deep learning techniques across diverse forensic disciplines. Kate hopes to pursue the connections she made during this opportunity to promote the adoption of deep learning in her field and champion collaborative, open access approaches to scientific research.

The YFSF Founder's Award

This award is designed to acknowledge a member of the AAFS or a member of the AAFS staff who has exhibited a dedication to the education, enrichment, and development of emerging forensic scientists, and who has shown a considerable amount of dedication to the assistance of emerging forensic scientists and the future leaders of the field. The YFSF Founder's Award will be presented at the AAFS annual meeting.

Past Recipients

• 2025 — C. Ken Williams
• 2024 — Zain M. Bahloo
• 2023 — Cheryl Hunter
• 2022 — Laura C. Fulginiti
• 2021 — Carl R. McClary
• 2020 — Alex J. Krotulski
• 2019 — Susan M. Ballou

Important Deadlines

October 1, 2024: Abstract Submissions due for YFSF Poster Session Award

Submit

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The YFSF provides young professionals and students an opportunity to network, collaborate and learn from fellow peers and experts in the field.

The YFSF hosts a Special Session at the annual meeting which is designed to prepare attendees for a successful career in their discipline of choice and encourage them to look inward as they evaluate themselves and their future impact on the greater professional realm of forensic science. 

Additionally, the YFSF hosts a Poster Session each year and acknowledges an individual(s) with the YFSF Outstanding Poster Award which provides scholarship and recognition to the individual(s) with the best poster produced by a young forensic scientist!

Finally, the YFSF works alongside the AAFS Mentorship Program to guide young professionals towards mentor/mentee relationships. Mentors are experienced professionals that work closely with their mentee to recommend steps in career progression, help network within the forensic science community, and support new skill developments.

The YFSF was created to support forensic scientists with five or less years of professional experience.

Whether you are a student, novice scientist, or making a career change into forensic science, the YFSF is here to assist!