Journal of Forensic Sciences Announces “Special Section on Disaster Victim Identification”

I am pleased to announce that the Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS) September 2024 issue will include a "Special Section on Disaster Victim Identification (DVI)," which I believe will be of great interest to the JFS readership. Forensic science has a major role in global DVI, as natural disasters are increasingly prevalent, and conflict ever present. As a community, we must apply new technologies and increase our efforts to identify the victims of these disasters. We hope that this collection of papers will play a role in achieving these aims.

The Special Section covers a wide range of topics, both traditional, e.g., anthropology and odontology, as well as advanced DNA approaches to the special problems associated with DVI. Due to the range of disasters, from natural to man-made, forensic scientists continue to apply new technologies and reapply older ones to the problems.  One example of the former is the paper by Greytak et al that describes investigative genetic genealogy, and one of the latter is the paper on refining an anthropology methodology for DVI by Stephan et al.

Without question, we all should review these papers as identifying victims of disasters, terrorism, transportation accidents, and others is a responsibility of the forensic science community. We should all be prepared to play a role, whether it is large or small, in identifying the victims and in bringing some closure to the families of the deceased. 

I am very excited about the DVI Special Section, and I would like to particularly thank Dr. Suni Edson and Dr. Mechthild (Mecki) Prinz for the vital role they played as Special Section Guest Editors, including identifying topics and authors, selecting reviewers, and assessing the submissions. It is a wonderful collection and should be of great interest to the JFS readership. 

Thank you for your continued support of JFS and its initiatives. For questions, please contact JFS Managing Editor Brenda Peat at bpeat@aafs.org.