MEASUREMENT)SCIENCE)AND)STANDARDS)IN)FORENSIC)

HANDWRITING)ANALYSIS)CONFERNECE

June%4,%2013 , AGENDA

8:30 – 9:00 AM Visit Registration Desk: NIST Lecture Room A in Building 101

9:00 – 9:30 AM Welcome and Opening Remarks

! John Paul Jones II, Program Manager, Law Enforcement Standards Office (OLES), National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

! Heather Waltke, Associate Director, Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences, National 

Institute of Justice (NIJ)

! Ted Burkes, Scientific Working Group on Forensic Document Examinations (SWGDOC) Chair, 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

! Jane Lewis, American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) Questioned Documents (QD) 

Section Director and Private Examiner 

9:30 – 10:15 AM CURRENT STATE OF HANDWRITING ANALYSIS

Forensic Handwriting Examinations: The Progression to our Current State

! John Paul Osborn, Forensic Document Examiner, Osborn & Son

! Peter Tytell, Forensic Document Examiner 

! Rigo Vargas, Questioned Documents Section Chief, Mississippi Crime Laboratory 

10:15 – 10:30 AM Break

10:30 – 12:00 PM FOUNDATIONAL SCIENCE BEHIND HANDWRITING

Neuroscience behind the Motor Control and Motor Equivalence of the Handwriting Function

! Michael Caligiuri, PhD, Professor, University of California, San Diego 

Handwriting Stroke Kinematics 

! Linton Mohammed, PhD, D-ABFDE, Forensic Document Examiner, Forensic Science 

Consultants, Inc. 

Cognitive Theoretical Perspectives in Studies of Forensic Document Examination including 

“What Examiners Look At” (i.e. Eye-tracking)

! Mara Merlino, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Kentucky State University

Moderated by Jane Lewis, AAFS-QD Section Director, Private Examiner

12:00 – 1:00 PM Lunch: On Your Own in NIST Cafeteria

1:00 – 2:30 PM REPRODUCIBILITY AND RELIABILITY STUDIES 

Performance of Forensic Document Examiners – Including Reliability and Repeatability 

! Moshe Kam, PhD, Professor, Drexel University 

Homogeneous Writing Research 

! Marie Durina, Senior Forensic Document Examiner, San Diego Sheriff’s Crime Laboratory

Lineup: The Reliability of Examinations Involving Multiple Suspected Writers

! David Parrett, Forensic Document Examiner 

Moderated by Rigo Vargas, Questioned Documents Section Chief, Mississippi Crime Laboratory

2:30 – 2:45 PM Break

2:45 – 5:00 PM ADVANCES IN MEASUREMENT SCIENCE IN HANDWRITING ANALYSIS 

Introduction to Quantitative Systems for Forensic Handwriting Comparisons 

! JoAnn Buscaglia, PhD, Research Chemist, FBI

WANDA: A Measurement Tool for Forensic Document Examiners

! Katrin Franke, PhD, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Digital Forensics and 

Cybercrime Investigation Laboratory at Gjøvik University College

The Forensic Language-Independent Analysis System for Handwriting Identification (FLASH ID)

! Mark Walch, President CEO, Gannon Technologies Group, and Donald Gantz, PhD, 

Statistician, George Mason University 

CEDAR FOX and iFOX

! Sargur Srihari, PhD, Professor, SUNY – Buffalo 

D-Scribe

! Matthias Schulte-Austum, Siemens AG, Senior Software Development Engineer and Siemens 

Key Expert Pattern Recognition 

Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT): Writer Recognition by Computer Vision

! Jeffrey P. Woodard, PhD, Researcher, The MITRE Corporation 

Moderated by JoAnn Buscaglia, PhD, Research Chemist, FBI
MEASUREMENT)SCIENCE)AND)STANDARDS)IN)FORENSIC)

HANDWRITING)ANALYSIS CONFERNECE

June%5,%2013 , AGENDA

8:30 – 9:00 AM Visit Registration Desk: NIST Lecture Room A in Building 101

9:00 – 10:30 AM ADVANCES IN STATISTICS FOR HANDWRITING ANALYSIS #1

Trends in Frequency Occurrence of Handwriting and Hand Printing Characteristics 

! Thomas W. Vastrick, Forensic Document Examiner 

Error, Confidence and (Un)certainty – Deconstructing Authorship Opinions Using a Forced-Call 

Testing Protocol

! Brent Ostrum, Senior Forensic Document Examiner, Canada Border Services Agency 

Understanding Individuality of Handwriting Using Score-Based Likelihood Ratios

! Christopher Saunders, PhD, Mathematical Statistician, South Dakota State University 

The Development of Individual Handwriting Characteristics and the Statistical Evaluation of 

Different Combination Likelihoods of These Individual Characteristics 

! Lisa Hanson, Forensic Document Examiner, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension 

Laboratory 

Moderated by John Paul Jones II, Program Manager, NIST

10:30 – 10:45 AM Break

10:45 – 11:30 PM ADVANCES IN STATISTICS FOR HANDWRITING ANALYSIS #2

Handwriting Evidence Evaluation Based on the Shape of Characters: Application of Multivariate 

Likelihood Ratios 

! Raymond Marquis, PhD, Institute of Forensic Science, University of Lausanne 

Statistical Basis to Determine Probabilities of Occurrence of Handwriting Characteristics 

! Kirsten Singer, Forensic Document Examiner, D-ABFDE, Department of Veteran Affairs, OIG

! Sargur Srihari, PhD, Professor, SUNY – Buffalo

Moderated by Jane Lewis, AAFS-QD Section Director, Private Examiner

11:30 – 12:30PM LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF QUANTITATIVE TESTIMONY 

Update from the Working Group on Presenting Forensic Science Evidence Using Quantitative 

and Qualitative Terms (QQWG) 

! Melissa Taylor, Management Analyst, NIST

Presenting Quantitative Techniques and Conclusions in Court

! Kenneth E. Melson, Professional Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School 

and Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Postal Service 

Moderated by JoAnn Buscaglia, PhD, Research Chemist, FBI

12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch: On Your Own in NIST Cafeteria

1:30 – 2:45 PM OTHER ANALYSIS TOOLS TO SUPPORT METRICS 

! Using the Statistical Functions of Write-On 2 Software to Assess Natural Variation in Handwriting

! Brian Lindblom, Forensic Document Examiner, Document Examination Consultants, Inc., 

Ottawa Canada 

Scanned Images: How Well Do They Depict the Subtle Features in Handwriting? 

! Janet Fenner Masson, Forensic Document Examiner

Current Bank Check Scanning Practices 

! Jane Lewis, AAFS-QD Section Director, Private Examiner 

Moderated by Kirsten Singer, FDE, D-ABFDE, Department of Veteran Affairs, OIG

2:45 – 3:00 PM Break

3:00 – 4:30 PM FACILITATED DISCUSSION 

! What does the future state of handwriting analysis look like?

! What are the barriers to implementing the future state?

! What does a roadmap to achieve the future state look like?

Facilitated by John Paul Osborn, Forensic Document Examiner, Osborn & Son, and Rigo Vargas, 

Questioned Documents Section Chief, Mississippi Crime Laboratory 

Knowledge Capture by SAIC and John Paul Jones II

4:30 PM MEETING SUMMARY AND NEXT STEPS