What is Forensic Chemistry?
Apart of the field of forensic sciences, forensic chemistry is chemistry applied to legal questions.
What does a Forensic Chemist Do?
A professional forensic chemist is someone who runs tests on evidence found at a crime scene, which is essential for solving crimes. This evidence may include cloth fibers, hair, fingernails, paint chips, glass fragments, blood stains, or other bodily fluids. Characterization of evidence requires extensive knowledge in chemistry, biology, and genetics.
What Can You Do With a Forensic Chemistry Degree?
Forensics is a rapidly expanding field that offers a variety of professional career options. From being a forensic analyst concentrating in ballistics, fingerprints, biological evidence, and more to getting into the medical profession, a forensic chemistry degree holds a variety of options, not all of them included in the forensic field.
Where Does Forensics Come From?
- The earliest definition of forensics is the Roman definition ‘of the forum’
- Criminal investigations before forensics became prevalent consisted of a ‘likely suspect’ and torture until a confession was given.
- Mathiew Orfila, is considered the father of modern toxicology. He made significant contributions to the development of tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context and is credited as the first to attempt the use of a microscope in the assessment of blood and semen stains.*
- Dr. Edmond Locard, a French scientist and criminologist proposed the Locard Exchange Principal, a notion that “everything leaves a trace”*
- His lab became the world’s first crime laboratory