Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute announces faculty fellows

The Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences has appointed five Institute Faculty Fellows. The new fellows program is designed to strengthen the institute’s ability to address key issues in the field through interdisciplinary research and scholarship.

“The strength of scholarship of our fellows enables us to address questions of vital importance to the national and international communities,” says Associate Dean James T. Spencer, executive director of the Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute (FNSSI). “The institute’s Faculty Fellows Program allows us to draw on these strengths to develop solutions that sit beyond the scope of traditional academic research areas.”

Institute Fellows will conduct research, work on interdisciplinary teams, teach courses and use shared instrumental resources to further aspects of their scholarship that are within the framework of the FNSSI.

The new fellows are:
Tej Bhatia, professor of linguistics and director of South Asian Languages, is an expert in the field of forensic linguistics and attribution of source for written and spoken text.

Robert Doyle, associate professor of chemistry, is developing vaccines against novel targets that will disrupt the bacterial life cycle earlier and eliminate toxin production. He is also developing improved drug delivery systems involving vitamin B12.

Timothy Korter, associate professor of chemistry, studies terahertz radiation (THz) as a means to identify the chemical (spectral) signature created by the vibrations of the molecules within compounds, including explosives.

Mathew Maye, assistant professor of chemistry, engineers nanomaterials that have the potential to be used as sensors to detect chemical and biological agents.

Scott Samson, professor of earth sciences, studies the use of unique ultra-trace isotopes to determine the origin of forensic samples and nuclear devices and materials.