Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
"How Much is Enough? How Sure are You? Recent Research on the Foundations of Fingerprint Comparison Decisions"
Heidi Eldridge, PhD
Assistant Professor of Forensic Science and Director of Graduate Studies in Crime Scene Investigations, The George Washington University
Fingerprints have long been viewed as infallible -- the "gold standard" when it comes to criminal identification. But recent critical reports and scrutiny have illuminated the fact that fingerprint science, though in use for more than 100 years in the courts, never went through the rigorous process of building a scientific foundation that most scientific endeavors must complete as part of their growing pains. This talk will briefly highlight some of the questions the field is currently grappling with and review the body of research that has sprung up in response.
Dr. Heidi Eldridge received her MS in Biology from Duke University and her PhD in Forensic Science from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). She spent approximately 11 years working in state, local, and regional forensic laboratories where she performed casework in controlled substances, latent prints, and crime scene analysis and reconstruction including bloodstain pattern interpretation, shooting reconstruction, event analysis, biological screening, and serial number restoration. From 2015 to 2022, she was a full-time forensic science researcher at RTI International, where she completed internally- and externally-funded research on the suitability decision in latent prints, establishing a baseline discipline error rate estimate for palmar comparisons, recognizing warning factors for close non-matches in latent prints, and human factors in forensic science. Dr. Eldridge is current Chair of the Friction Ridge Consensus Body of the American Standards Board (ASB) and of the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission (FEPAC). She sits on the Boards of Directors of both the International Association for Identification (IAI) and the ASB and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and is chair of the Friction Ridge Subcommittee of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science. Additionally, Dr. Eldridge sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Forensic Identification and is a peer-reviewer for several other forensic science journals. Dr. Eldridge is a Certified Latent Print Examiner with the IAI.
"How Much is Enough? How Sure are You? Recent Research on the Foundations of Fingerprint Comparison Decisions"
Heidi Eldridge, PhD
Assistant Professor of Forensic Science and Director of Graduate Studies in Crime Scene Investigations, The George Washington University
Fingerprints have long been viewed as infallible -- the "gold standard" when it comes to criminal identification. But recent critical reports and scrutiny have illuminated the fact that fingerprint science, though in use for more than 100 years in the courts, never went through the rigorous process of building a scientific foundation that most scientific endeavors must complete as part of their growing pains. This talk will briefly highlight some of the questions the field is currently grappling with and review the body of research that has sprung up in response.
Dr. Heidi Eldridge received her MS in Biology from Duke University and her PhD in Forensic Science from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). She spent approximately 11 years working in state, local, and regional forensic laboratories where she performed casework in controlled substances, latent prints, and crime scene analysis and reconstruction including bloodstain pattern interpretation, shooting reconstruction, event analysis, biological screening, and serial number restoration. From 2015 to 2022, she was a full-time forensic science researcher at RTI International, where she completed internally- and externally-funded research on the suitability decision in latent prints, establishing a baseline discipline error rate estimate for palmar comparisons, recognizing warning factors for close non-matches in latent prints, and human factors in forensic science. Dr. Eldridge is current Chair of the Friction Ridge Consensus Body of the American Standards Board (ASB) and of the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission (FEPAC). She sits on the Boards of Directors of both the International Association for Identification (IAI) and the ASB and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and is chair of the Friction Ridge Subcommittee of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science. Additionally, Dr. Eldridge sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Forensic Identification and is a peer-reviewer for several other forensic science journals. Dr. Eldridge is a Certified Latent Print Examiner with the IAI.
