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Katherine Scafide has been named an American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS) Fellow. The George Mason University forensic nurse researcher joins an elite group of only eight other current nurses granted this honor, which recognizes her outstanding contributions to forensic nursing.
“I am honored to be part of this distinguished and select group of Fellows who are nurses. Being an AAFS Fellow allows me to widen the impact of my interpersonal violence research beyond the nursing field,” said Scafide, a professor in the School of Nursing in the College of Public Health.
Scafide is pioneering the use of alternate light sources for improved bruise detection on all skin tones. Forensic nurses play a crucial role in collecting and preserving evidence that can be used in legal proceedings.
In her nearly 20 years of experience in forensic nursing practice and research, Scafide has developed a deep understanding of the complexities and challenges within forensic nursing.
Scafide has developed and evaluated clinical guidelines to support the implementation of this technology into forensic nursing practice. Her George Mason interdisciplinary research team includes a collaboration between the College of Public Health’s Health Informatics Program and the College of Engineering and Computing to use deep learning to analyze digital images of healing bruises and determine a bruise’s age, as well as develop a national repository of bruise images.
The American Academy of Forensic Science has 6500+ members across 50 countries. At its 77th Annual Conference in February, Scafide gave two invited talks; the first educated student scientists about forensic nursing and the importance of interdisciplinary research to advance science. Second, she discussed the implications of the bruise detection technology her team is creating at a special interdisciplinary session on ethical and legal challenges facing AI applications in forensic science.