Marshall University’s Institute for Cyber Security (ICS) and the Marshall University Forensic Science Center will host the inaugural Converged Forensic Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 29–30, 2026, at the Memorial Student Center on Marshall’s Huntington campus. The summit is free to attend and registration is open now at www.marshall.edu/cyber/cfs.
Built around the theme “Converged Forensics: Stronger Cases Through Shared Science,” the two-day program is aimed squarely at the people who build criminal cases from the scene to the courtroom; police officers and investigators, crime scene technicians, forensic scientists, digital forensics practitioners, prosecutors, defense attorneys and legal support staff and forensic science and criminal justice students.
The premise of the summit is that no case is solved by a single discipline. DNA, digital, trace, toxicology and firearms evidence each tell part of the story and it is only when those disciplines converge — and the agencies behind them talk to one another — that investigators and prosecutors see the full picture. The program is organized to reflect that: DNA science and forensic genetic genealogy anchor day one, digital forensics and case-building carry day two and legal, judicial and multi-agency perspectives run through both.
“Every agency in this state is working cases that touch more than one forensic discipline, and too often those disciplines are working in separate lanes,” says Alex Donathan, executive director of Marshall’s Institute for Cyber Security. “We built this summit so the people doing that work, the investigator, the analyst, the prosecutor, in the same room for two days, learning the same material and building the relationships that make the next case
go faster.”
The summit’s keynote address will be delivered by CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs and one of the most widely recognized practitioners in investigative genetic genealogy. Moore leads a team credited with hundreds of identifications in violent crime and unidentified remains cases since 2018, and her work produced the first conviction by jury verdict and the first exoneration in cases where a suspect was identified through investigative genetic genealogy. She has served as the full-time genetic genealogist for the PBS series “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.” since 2013 and was featured in the ABC News documentary series “The Genetic Detective.”
Day one sessions cover rapid DNA across the forensic landscape: from investigation to identification, presented by ANDE, and probabilistic genotyping and mixture deconvolution in law enforcement casework, presented by Cybergenetics of Pittsburgh. Sergeant Larry Hasley (Retired), WV SAKI Coordinator, will brief attendees on West Virginia Sexual Assault Kit Initiative and its work across the state, and Gina Wells of the Kentucky State Police will present on forensic response.
A judicial and legal panel will bring the science into the courtroom. Panelists include Judge Chad Lovejoy of the Sixth Judicial Circuit (Cabell County); Judge Joseph Barki III of the First Judicial Circuit (Brooke, Hancock and Ohio counties); Cabell County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kent Bryson; and Tanner Wall of the Cabell County Public Defender Office. The panel is expected to address how forensic evidence is introduced, challenged and admitted and what practitioners can do at the front end of a case to keep it durable at trial.
Day two turns to digital and electronic evidence, with hands-on platform demonstrations from OpenText/EnCase, presented by Craig Porter, and from Spyder Forensics, presented by Damien Attoe. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Goes will offer a federal prosecution perspective on digital evidence and case building. A West Virginia forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) panel will convene representatives of the West Virginia State Police Forensic Laboratory, the West Virginia Fusion Center, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the West Virginia State Police for an overview of the state’s FGG work and an agency roundtable. An additional session will address white collar crime investigation.
“Forensic science moves quickly, and West Virginia practitioners should not have to leave the state to keep up with it,” says Jason Chute, executive director of the Marshall University Forensic Science Center. “Bringing someone of CeCe Moore’s stature to Huntington, alongside our own state’s laboratory, medical examiner and task force leadership, gives our law enforcement and legal communities access to the current state of the field right here at home. Partnerships like the ones we have with Parabon NanoLabs and RGEN are a big part of how we get that access.”
The Converged Forensic Summit is free, but registration is required and space at the Memorial Student Center is limited. Agencies are encouraged to register personnel early and to send teams across roles — investigators, lab staff and attorneys — to get the full benefit of the cross-disciplinary format.
The Converged Forensic Summit is presented by Marshall University’s Institute for Cyber Security and the Marshall University Forensic Science Center, with programming and technology contributions from partner organizations across the forensic community. These organizations include RGEN, ANDE, Cybergenetics, Parabon NanoLabs and Spyder Forensics. Their participation brings attendees direct access to the platforms, methods and
practitioners shaping current casework in DNA, digital and multidisciplinary forensics.
