Announcements

ISFG Summer School | Virtual Edition 2023

It is our pleasure to announce the launch of the official website of the 2023 virtual edition of the ISFG Summer School! Save the dates! 28th August – 8th September The website includes details on the 19 workshops, the presenters, time schedules, registration fees, and more. Registration for ISFG members only will start on April 17, 2023. Do not miss this opportunity to learn from very experienced colleagues in the field and mark the dates for registration in your calendar! ICFIS in Lund, Sweden, postponed to June 2023 The 11th International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics (ICFIS) at the Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden has been postponed to 2023 and the new dates are 12-15 June 2023. The conference web pages are found at https://www.law.lu.se/#!ICFIS. This international conference unites lawyers, statisticians and forensic scientists in their interest in optimal reasoning concerning forensic evidence. Technical developments in biological, physical, chemical and digital forensic disciplines are fast and have an increasing impact on law enforcement and the justice system. Examples are DNA profiling, fingerprint and illicit drug analysis, and analysis of large digital datasets for intelligence purposes. Whatever the type of evidence, it can only be of value when it is properly gathered, analysed, evaluated, and communicated by the scientist. Moreover, it should be understood by the legal decision maker. This requires sound statistical and logical methods, and good communication between lawyers and scientists. International Summer Course 2023 – Copenhagen University The Department of Forensic Medicine of the University of Copenhagen is hosting a Summer Course on Forensic Genetics and Massively Parallel Sequencing. This is a great opportunity to “learn more about the fascinating work in forensic genetics, MPS, and get hands-on experience with data analysis within MPS.” For more detailed information, please visit the website and/or send an email to ForensicGeneticsCourse@sund.ku.dk. Applications are open until April 1st, 2023. 2023 ESWG Scientific Meeting - Call for abstracts - Save the date! The meeting will be held in London and hosted by Denise Syndercombe Court and colleagues at King’s. Meeting will start at 9am on Monday 15th of May and close on the 16th of May at 12:30 to allow for departure to Budapest for those attending the Haploid Marker meeting on the 17th -20th of May 2023. A flight from London Gatwick airport at 4.15pm with Easyjet is direct to Budapest. We are now accepting abstracts for oral presentation on the following topics of interest:

• Kinship
• Interesting kinship cases
• New technologies that can be applied to kinship

Abstract submission deadline is 5pm GMT on the 31st of March 2023. To submit your abstract please visit the ESWG London 2023 website

Peter Schneider Symposium 2023

A Symposium on May 30 and 31, 2023, is being organized by colleagues from the Institute of Legal Medicine, University Hospital of Cologne (Germany) in memory and honor of Peter Schneider. Please read the invitation here Peter Schneider Symposium 2023 If you would like to participate and/or need more information, please write an email to the organizers at rechtsmedizin-dna@uk-koeln.de Note that the workshops on the first day will be in German and the lectures, on the second day, in English. The meeting is free except for the “get together & dinner” and the cemetery tour.

2023 | Cycle of Workshops - The state-of-the-art in forensic genetics | Porto | Portugal

A set of three Forensic Genetics Workshops are being organized at the I3S Institute in Porto, Portugal, in March of this year (23 and 24). “Cycle of Workshops - The state-of-the-art in forensic genetics” will be a hybrid event (on-site and online) entirely dedicated to the current status of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), DNA mixtures and X-chromosome markers. The Scientific (António Amorim, Iva Gomes, Nádia Pinto) and Organizing (Camila Costa, Catarina Xavier, Marisa Faustino, Sofia Antão Sousa, Verónica Gomes) Committees would like to welcome everyone to the lovely city of Porto and enjoy the full program available here This event, sponsored by the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Group of the ISFG (GHEP-ISFG), will be held mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, with some lectures in English. Early-bird fees are available until February 7. Late registration until February 21. Whether or not you can travel to Porto, this is a great opportunity for learning! Workshops: 1. "NGS advancement topics: markers, data interpretation, casework applications" (full day workshop) Christopher Phillips | María de la Puente | Ana Mosquera | Catarina Xavier | Óscar García 2. "DNA mixture interpretation" (half day workshop) Probabilistic genotyping software: Limitations and differences of the existing computational tools and respective consequences on the evaluation of the evidence. Lourdes Prieto | Pedro A. Barrio 3. "X-Chromosome markers: complex pedigrees, chromosomal abnormalities and kinship analyses" (half day workshop) Daniel Kling | Nádia Pinto

Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Forensic Analysis of Human DNA scheduled for 2025!

Announcement from the GRC 2025 chairs: Katherine Gettings & Titia Sijen and GRC 2025 co-chairs: Athina Vidaki & Susan Walsh During the Covid-19 pandemic, the bi-annual Gordon Research Conference on Forensic Analysis of Human DNA got postponed 2 years, while the bi-annual ISFG meeting was postponed 1 year due to which 2022 accommodated both meetings. To have these two meetings again in alternating years, the GRC (co)-chairs have requested that the next GRC meeting will be held in 2025, and we are pleased to announce that this was granted by the GRC Board of Trustees. So, when making your multi-year conference planning, you may consider to join the GRC meeting in 2025. When and where this GRC will be held, will be decided and announced later. We hope you consider joining the 2025 GRC!

12th Haploid Markers Conference (HM2023) - Registration open

The registration for the HM2023 Conference (17-20 May, Budapest) is now open. Please visit https://www.convention.hu/Event/Registration/HM20EN to register on-line You can also submit abstracts (talks are preferred, posters are welcome) via http://www.hm2020.hu/ until 10th March 2023 Do not miss this important event!

Meeting of the Arabian Speaking Working Group (ASWG) at the World Police Summit 2023

The ASWG will meet at the World Police Summit 2023 in Dubai. Please visit the link https://www.worldpolicesummit.com/conferences/forensic-science/. The World Police Summit will be taking place from the 7 to 9 March, 2023 at Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai, UAE and in its second edition will provide an unparalleled platform to explore the current challenges facing police forces and the latest technological advancements, strategies, and innovations across the law enforcement and security spectrum. Do not miss this event!!

DNA mixture interpretation workshop at ISFG 2022

A workshop about the interpretation of complex mixtures will be held at the 29th ISFG Congress in Washington DC by Corina Benschop, Oyvind Bleka and Peter Gill. Different software solutions will be demonstrated: EuroForMix, DNAStatistX, CaseSolver and DNAxs. The workshop materials can be downloaded using this link: ISFG 2022 Mixture Workshop

Registration for ISFG 2022 in Washington D.C.

Please register for the 29^th ISFG Congress in Washington D.C.:

• https://www.isfg2022.org/attend/registration-pricing/

Don't miss the educational workshops! All details can be found here:

• https://www.isfg2022.org/scientific-program/workshops/

And last but not least, register for the Gala Dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center ­– it's an "all inclusive" event:

• https://www.isfg2022.org/gala-dinner/

International attendees: In order to visit the United States of America, you may need to obtain a visa. We encourage you to contact your local Consulate or the Consular Section of your local US Embassy if you need a visa and to determine the appropriate time for the visa application process to be completed. You may request a letter of invitation to aid in this process.

• https://www.isfg2022.org/attend/international-attendees/

ICFIS in Lund, Sweden, postponed to 2023

The 11^th International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics (ICFIS2022) at the Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden has been postponed to 2023. Details will be given here: http://www.law.lu.se/#!ICFIS2022 This international conference unites lawyers, statisticians and forensic scientists in their interest in optimal reasoning concerning forensic evidence. Technical developments in biological, physical, chemical and digital forensic disciplines are fast and have an increasing impact on law enforcement and the justice system. Examples are DNA profiling, fingerprint and illicit drug analysis, and analysis of large digital datasets for intelligence purposes. Whatever the type of evidence, it can only be of value when it is properly gathered, analysed, evaluated, and communicated by the scientist. Moreover, it should be understood by the legal decision maker. This requires sound statistical and logical methods, and good communication between lawyers and scientists.

Advanced online DNA interpretation course 2021-2022

The University of Lausanne is planning to run an advanced DNA interpretation course (date to be decided) that allows to assess results considering activity level propositions. Spread over 13 months, this 150 hour course represents an average workload of 4 hours per week. The course material is provided electronically, along with full support from the lecturers and discussion sessions. At the end of the course participants will be proficient to report given activity level propositions with likelihood ratios (computed with and without Bayesian Networks). A time-limited version of a Bayesian Network software is provided. The course is fully accredited. Candidates receive a certificate of participation, along with 5 ECTS credits. Further details, where you can also register your interest, at: https://www.formation-continue-unil-epfl.ch/en/formation/advanced-dna-interpretation/ or you can also contact us directly at sefe@unil.ch. Prof. Dr. Christophe Champod, Prof. Dr. Franco Taroni, Prof. Dr. Alex Biedermann, DrSc. Tacha Hicks

12th Haploid Markers Meeting postponed to 2023

Important message: Due to the still unpredictable Corona virus / Covid-19 situation, the 12^th Haploid Markers Meeting has been postponed to May 17­–20, 2023, taking place in Budapest, Hungary. The Conference motto is “Big data – stretching the borders of forensic genetics”. Novel sequencing techniques have significantly increased the body of haploid data and will continue to shape our understanding of extant lineage variation. This also impacts forensic applications. Therefore, attendees who specialize in this aspect are encouraged to submit relevant abstracts. The organizers invite papers on a variety of topics including

• forensic biostatistics of haploid markers
• haploid markers in the courtroom
• evidential value of high-resolution mtDNA and Y haplotypes - new sequencing technologies and bioinformatics
• update on forensic databases
• population structure and inference on its history
• forensic genealogical testing
• human evolutionary genomics
• ethical considerations in the context of phenotyping and biogeographic ancestry testing

All conference details can be retrieved from the meeting website: http://www.hm2020.hu/.

IAFS in Sydney postponed to 2023

The 22^nd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Science (IAFS) in conjunction with the 25^th Symposium of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society (ANZFSS) originally due to be held in September 2020 has been postponed to November 20-24, 2023, see https://iafs2023.com.au/.