Spring 2007: UAA Complex Systems Group welcomes Dr. Cyril H. Wecht

Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, forensic pathologist, attorney, medical-legal consultant, comes to UAA to give two free public lectures on Thursday, April 19 and Friday, April 20.  Wecht has served as an expert in many high-profile cases, including Daniel Smith, O.J. Simpson, Chandra Levy, JonBenet Ramsey, Laci Peterson, among many others.  The author of several books, including Cause of Death, Grave Secrets, Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?, Mortal Evidence and Tales from the Morgue, Dr. Wecht has performed more than 15,000 autopsies and has supervised, reviewed, or been consulted on approximately 35,000 additional post-mortem exhumations, including cases in several foreign countries.  The two public lectures at UAA include the following presentations:

"Some of My Most Interesting Cases"
Thursday, April 19, 7:30 p.m.
Wendy Williamson Auditorium

Political assassinations, celebrity deaths, unsolved mysteries, police-related deaths, highly controversial forensic scientific issues - all of these will be discussed within the context of specific cases in which Dr. Wecht has been directly and personally involved in some professional capacity.  Questions such as the following will also be discussed:

•    Should Terry Schiavo have been removed from life support?
•    Should police use TASER's, and if so, under what circumstances?
•    Are forensic science labs always honest and correct in their analyses?

Dr. Wecht has appeared as a frequent guest on numerous national television and radio shows to discuss the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Reverend Martin Luther King; the death of Elvis Presley; Sheppard case; and the Diallo case.

"Global Forensic Scientific Concepts"
Friday, April 20, Noon
Allied Health Sciences Building, room 106

What do DNA testing, the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and "CSI" television programs have in common? All have contributed significantly to the ever-increasing fascination and interest in the field of forensic science, not only in the United States, but also throughout the world. Television shows, movies and novels that prominently feature forensic scientists as the major characters, with conspiracies and crimes that rely upon discovery and solution by forensic pathologists, toxicologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, questioned document examiners and criminalists, have come to dominate their respective commercial categories.

Contributions made by forensic scientists around the world have exceeded any other field of academic endeavor in achieving social justice. Whether it be the investigation of an individual murder or genocide; proving the sexual assault of one woman or the rape and pillage of an entire village; analysis of a single forged document or the Enron scandal; the determination of a single defendant's sanity or the evaluation of the mindset and acts of a tyrannical dictator - more and more, forensic scientists are being called upon to methodically, objectively, and impartially provide answers for local, national, and international law enforcement agencies, judges, and other governmental entities, as well as for private citizens, corporations and various other groups.

Dr. Wecht has participated in many such cases over the past three decades, individually and sometimes collaboratively, in Asia, Africa, the Mideast, Europe, Australia, the Caribbean, and Central America. Some of these investigations have been undertaken at the behest of private citizens, and more often under the official aegis of a foreign government. A few of these challenging, complex and highly controversial matters have been extremely important and significantly relevant with regard to national elections, government policies, and even international diplomatic relations.

Dr. Wecht will discuss the roles they have played in these cases and expound upon the critical nature of forensic scientific evidence in helping to defuse and resolve highly sensitive and potentially explosive allegations that occasionally have global ramifications.

Complex systems is rooted in science and examines how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of a system.  These lectures are part of UAA's 2007 Complex Systems Lecture Series, a program that brings cutting-edge research in the field of complexity to the Alaska public.

For more information about UAA's Complex Systems Group or the Complex Systems Lecture Series, visit http://complexsystems.uaa.alaska.edu.