Remi Wieten, MSc student
I started the Master in Forensic Science in 2012 after completing my Bachelor in Mathematics. Though I liked the formality and rigor of theoretical mathematics, in the end I preferred to apply math to solve specific practical problems. When I found out about the Master I was immediately enthusiastic.
I never knew such a Master existed, it combined many different disciplines and covered a variety of exciting subjects. The last decades statistics and probability theory have become increasingly more important in forensic science, and it seemed intriguing to be able to contribute to such a rapidly expanding field.
I had the opportunity to do an internship at the Netherlands Forensic Institute for 6 months as my final research project. During this internship I occupied myself with the interpretation of traces that can be found on adhesive tapes. Perpetrators often use adhesive tapes in crimes, for example to tie together the wrists of a victim or to bind together parts of an improvised explosive device. As tape is so adhesive many different traces can be found on tape during forensic examination, such as DNA, fibers and fingerprints. The internship therefore involved contact with a number of different departments at the NFI, making it very interdisciplinary. The mathematical part of the project involved developing Bayesian networks, which are probabilistic tools that can help the forensic expert in determining the evidential value of traces. There are many factors that have to be taken into consideration simultaneously when an expert has to determine the evidential value of a trace, and a Bayesian network helps in mapping out the different variables of interest and determining the areas in which further data needs to be gathered.
Three months into the project my supervisors suggested I send in an abstract to the scientific comity of the 9th International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics. After a few weeks I was excited to hear that my abstract was accepted for oral presentation. The conference took place in Leiden (19-22 August), and I presented on the second day. It was a great opportunity to share my results with an internationally acclaimed audience. The conference allowed me to come into contact with many experts in the field of forensic statistics. I was also able to discuss interesting new job and research opportunities with them.