An icon in the field of forensic science, Herbert Leon MacDonell, will present "Sixty
Years of Forensic Investigations" Tuesday, March 24, at 7 p.m. in Syracuse
University's Life Science Complex Auditorium (Room 001). The lecture is presented
by the Forensic Science Program in
SU's College of Arts and Sciences and is free and
open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Booth Garage on Comstock
Avenue.
MacDonell is director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y. He has
testified as an expert witness in 33 states and in countries across the globe, including
in such celebrated cases as the Joan Little murder trial in Raleigh, N.C.; the O.J.
Simpson double murder trial in Los Angeles; the assassination of U.S. Sen. Robert F.
Kennedy in Los Angeles; and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.
Holder of four patents, MacDonell invented the MAGNA Brush, a device for
processing latent fingerprints. It is the only powder method that is successful for
developing fingerprints deposited on human skin. In 1973, MacDonell founded the
Bloodstain Evidence Institute; he has conducted seminars and workshops on human
bloodstain evidence across the United States and abroad. He is also founder of the
International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, which currently has more
than 800 members from 17 countries. He has written four books on bloodstain
pattern interpretation and more than 100 forensic and scientific articles, some of
which are chapters in classic forensic textbooks.
MacDonell holds a B.A. from Alfred University and an M.S. and Sc.D. from the
University of Rhode Island. He was professor and head of the chemistry department
at Milton College in Wisconsin and professor of criminalistics at both Corning
Community College and Elmira College.
SU's College of Arts and Sciences offers undergraduate students a minor in forensic
science and graduate students a master's program in forensic science. The M.S.
degree program is an interdisciplinary course of study that provides students with an
in-depth understanding of the fundamental concepts and principles involved in the
application of scientific techniques to forensic investigations and to the criminal
justice system. Further information about the programs is available on the Web at
http://forensics.syr.edu.
