Global Forensic Justice Center (GFJC) Fund

The GFJC, with all the forensic science there, helps our education program and training of nurses in rural areas, who learn how to collect evidence not only in a humane way but an accurate way, so that good samples reach the scientists working at the bench in a lab. Hopefully, that leads to higher prosecution rates. And, at the same time, the person who has survived this horrible event in their life has received the best care and follow-up care.Dr. Tami Thomas/Associate Dean of Research/Director of PhD Nursing Program, Professor

The GFJC allows us to partner with forensic scientists, lawyers, psychologists, and other practitioners throughout the nation, who all think about different aspects of justice and work together to try to improve the legal system for everyone. For instance, we recently partnered with many members of the GFJC on a grant to look at how we can improve jurors’ understanding of forensic science testimony. Our GFJC partnership helped make this project wide in reach, and wide in scope is it pertains to subject matter." Dr. Deborah Goldfarb/Assistant Professor, Psychology

In environmental forensic science, we’re interested in finding and understanding how chemicals behave. If you have a spill, such as an oil spill, you could track it back to the specific vessel responsible for the spill. If you have a sewage spill it’s a little different. You’re only going to track it to a ruptured pipe, but that pipe is the responsibility of a specific entity. We want to apply all our environmental techniques and trace those details back to an entity or a specific process, in a way that can be defended in a court of law.Dr. Piero R. Gardinali/FIU Professor and Director of the Freshwater Resources Division