Conference: The 12th International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics

The International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics (ICFIS) will be held September 28 - October 2, 2026, on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, the home of the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence. The fair administration of justice demands that evidence be correctly evaluated and interpreted. Until recently, forensic examiners relied on subjective methods to interpret evidence, mainly because data-based, scientifically solid methods were not available to them. In the past few decades, the scientific community, in collaboration with forensic and legal professionals, have begun building a toolbox for forensic practitioners using science and data. Statisticians have played a major role in this effort, aiming to provide a measure of uncertainty to findings based on the evidence at hand. ICFIS, which has been held every three years since 1990, is the main venue for statisticians, scientists, and legal and forensic professionals to gather, discuss recent advances, and find collaborators for future research projects. ICFIS will be a 5-day event with workshops, oral and poster presentations, and awards, featuring prominent forensic statisticians as well as students and early-career scientists. New, accurate technologies useful in forensic practice that may arise as a result of scientific research will have a positive impact on the justice system and contribute to the well-being of our society. The aim of ICFIS 2026 is to foster sustained growth in the field of forensic statistics by building synergistic relationships between academics and practitioners across many disciplines in forensic science, including genetics, toxicology, statistics, data science, and probability theory. With this goal in mind, the conference themes are wide-ranging. Presentations will cover timely topics including the use of artificial intelligence in the justice system, the reliability of methods to analyze low-content DNA samples, and the development of new methods for the rapid detection of illegal drugs. From a statistical perspective, the ICFIS will result in advances toward dependent data analysis, causal inference, decision theory and uncertainty quantification, and inference using image data, to name a few. These advances may be disseminated via a special collection in the Law, Probability, and Risk journal. In its totality, the ICFIS 2026 presents a singular platform for influencing forensic science reform given its positioning at the intersection of modern data science, forensic science, and the law. Website: https://forensicstats.org/icfis-conference This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.