Dr Tacha Hicks

Tacha Hicks is a forensic scientist, with a specialization in interpretation of evidence. She is responsible for the online interpretation courses tailored for forensic caseworkers (e.g., DNA scientists, handwriting examiners, fingerprint examiners…) that are provided to forensic practitioners and lawyers by the University of Lausanne (Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration, School of Criminal Justice). She is specialized in the interpretation of micro-traces such as glass, fibres, and DNA traces. Early in her career, through her PhD research on glass (at the School of Criminal Justice), she specialized in assessing forensic results given activity level propositions. She worked for three years at the former Forensic Science Service in R&D in the Physical Science department and returned to the University of Lausanne for her postdoc in the area of DNA in 2010. Since 2016 she has also been working as an interpretation specialist at the University Center of Legal Medicine, Lausanne – Geneva (Switzerland) where she is the interpretation leader.

She has co-authored books on the interpretation of micro-traces and has published numerous articles and been on committees on interpretation issues.