LITMIR.BIZ

About the Editors

      Victor W. Weedn, MD, JD, is a forensic pathologist and attorney, and the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland. He has worked as a medical examiner, crime laboratory director, research scientist, and professor of forensic science and of law. He founded the military’s DNA identification program and oversaw the Armed Forces Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), which identified the remains of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, the Branch Davidian conflagration victims in Waco, and later the Michael Blassie, the Vietnam unknown of the Tomb of the Unknowns. He pioneered STR and mtDNA analysis and CE and DNA microchip technologies. He was on the prosecution witness list for the OJ Simpson trial. He holds a patent on latent fingerprint technology. He led the establishment of the NAME inspection and accreditation program. He was the 2015–2016 AAFS President and established the AAFS Academy Standards Board. He received the Helpern Award from the Path/Bio Section of the AAFS in 2017. He was detailed to the DOJ as the Senior Forensic Advisor to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, 2016–2017. He testified to the US Congress in 2018. He currently serves on the NAME Board of Directors, the AAFS ASB Disaster Victim Identification Consensus Body, and the NIST OSAC Medicolegal Death Investigation Subcommittee.

John A. Williams, Ph.D. D-ABFA (retired), is an Emeritus Professor of forensic anthropology at Western Carolina University. He received his doctorate in 1980 in physical anthropology from the Ohio State University. He spent nearly a quarter of a century as a Professor at the University of North Dakota. There he began his academic career working with prehistoric human skeletons. This led to his involvement with law enforcement and his current interest in forensic anthropology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and a now retired Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. Over the past four decades he has worked with medical examiners, the FBI, and law enforcement agencies across the United States. In 2003 he moved to North Carolina to create and direct the forensic anthropology program at Western Carolina University. There in 2005 he established the world’s second human decomposition research facility. He has been a member of the Federal agency, Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), since 1995. In his capacity with DMORT, he has assisted in the identification of mass fatality victims including aircarrier accidents and the 911 terrorist attack. He has also served as an instructor at national DMORT trainings. Since 2016 he has chaired the Disaster Victim Identification Consensus Body of the American Standards Board.