Welch, Amy

PERSONAL:

Married. Education: Earned B.A. and M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Knoxville, TN. Office—Law Enforcement Innovation Center, University of Tennessee, 105 Student Services Bldg., Knoxville, TN 37996. E-mail—amywelch@tennessee.edu.

CAREER:

Ohio University, Athens, Institute for Local Government Administration and Rural Development, former staff; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Law Enforcement Innovation Center, forensic program coordinator, 2002—.

WRITINGS:

(With Jarrett Hallcox) Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School, foreword by Bill Bass, Berkley Books (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Amy Welch became involved with the National Forensic Academy when she was hired as the program's training coordinator in 2002. Despite a lack of formal training in the field of forensics, Welch played a pivotal role in developing the NFA into a top-notch crime scene investigation program that now has a three-year waiting list. Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School, written with colleague and NFA director Jarrett Hallcox, is a look at the technical aspects of the academy's curriculum as compared to the more glamorous depiction of forensic science as seen on television and in the movies. Examples of topics discussed in the book are the sciences behind crime scene management, bloodstain analysis, forensic identification, and forensic anthropology. The book's foreword is written by Dr. Bill Bass, a professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, who researches the decomposition of human corpses and who was a cofounder of the NFA with Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith. Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley called Bodies We've Buried an "enlightening and engrossing" read.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2006, Kristine Huntley, review ofBodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, November 14, 2005, review ofBodies We've Buried, p. 59.

ONLINE

Bodies We've Buried Web site,http://www.bodiesweveburied.com (July 25, 2006).