Bachelor of Forensic Science

A graduate of Bachelor of Forensic Science is prepared for careers in scientific crime investigation; law enforcement; forensic science education; foreign or international agencies and research and evaluation of forensic evidence in courts of law. This program also provides a good preparation for the study of Law and Medicine and for further forensic science specialization. Forensic Science is the application of scientific principles and techniques to the legal process in support of criminal investigation and proper administration of justice. 

The program is interdisciplinary, combining a strong foundation in the natural and social sciences with extensive laboratory and field experiences to prepare students in the effective conduct of scientific crime detection and to competently testify and present evidence in courts of law. Graduates of the program shall be conferred with the degree of Bachelor of Forensic Science (BFSci).

Criminal Justice is a discipline that aims to preserve peace and keep order in a free society. As the trends of criminality today flow like how our technology is upgraded, it is imperative that our criminal justice enforcers are equipped with knowledge and skills in forensic investigation. From the identification and collection of evidence until its preservation and examination, and presentation to the court of law shall be observed. Bachelor of Forensic Science, an interdisciplinary program that combines a strong foundation of natural and social sciences and extensive laboratory and field experience answers the practical necessity in this complexity of today’s investigative challenges.  

Some laboratory exercises and studies that students will learn from the program:

Fingerprints

Fingerprint evidence can play a crucial role in criminal investigations as it can confirm or disprove a person’s identity. No two people have the same fingerprints, not even identical twins. Neither do fingerprints change, even as we get older, unless the deep or ‘basal’ layer is destroyed.

Blood pattern analysis

(BPA) Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) is the interpretation of bloodstains at a crime scene in order to recreate the actions that happened in a crime. BPA uses principles of biology (behavior of blood), physics (cohesion, capillary action and velocity) and mathematics (geometry, distance, and angle) to assist investigators in answering forensic questions.

Insects

Insect evidence can help forensic investigators determine the time and place of death. The use of insects’ crime investigations requires an understanding of the insect’s life cycle, the relationship of the insect to the remains, and the relationship of the remains to the habitat in which they are discovered.

Anthropology

For criminal cases with skeletalized, decomposing, burnt, and dismembered human remains, the police usually call on the help of a forensic anthropologist to come up with a biological profile. Forensic anthropologists are experts of human variation, and they can determine sex, age, and height based on physical observable traits.

Chemistry

A forensic chemist can assist in the identification of unknown materials found at a crime scene. Specialists in this field have a wide array of methods and instruments, such as high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thin layer chromatography, to help identify unknown substances.

Body farm

Body farms are research facilities focused on human decomposition, helping law enforcement answer questions about time since death and manner of death. Only seven such facilities exist across the United States, one in Australia, and one in Canada.

Serial murder

In 2008, FBI defined serial murder as the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offenders in separate events. The amount of research on serial killers to date is limited, and much of what we know, or claim to know, about serial murder is based on misinformation and myth construction.