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2017 Outstanding Alumni

2017-09-06

Writer(s): Steve Scherer


Barry A. J. Fisher
B.S. The City College of New York
M.S. Purdue University
MBA California State University, Northridge

Dr. Fisher

Barry Fisher served as the Crime Laboratory Director for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department from 1987 until his retirement in 2009. He began his career in criminalistics at the crime lab in 1969 and worked in a wide variety of forensic science assignments. In addition to forensic science, he is interested in the interrelationship between forensic science and the law.

Fisher is a Distinguished Fellow and past-president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He served as president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences, and president of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.

He has been a member of several editorial boards:  the Journal of Forensic Sciences, the Journal of Forensic Identification, Forensic Science Policy and Management and the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

His textbook, Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, in its 8th edition, enjoys wide popularity.  He is a co-author of two other books, Forensics Demystified and Introduction to Criminalistics: The Foundation of Forensic Science.

Since retiring, Fisher has consulted for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United States Department of Justice, International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP), Analytic Services Inc., a not-for-profit institute that provides studies and analyses to aid decision-makers in national security, homeland security, and public safety and RTI, International, Center for Forensic Science.

Barry and his wife Susan make their home in Indio near Palm Springs, California. 

While at Purdue, he studied with Professor Henry Feuer.

 

David D. Koch 
B.S. Purdue University
Ph.D. Purdue University

Dr. KochDavid D. Koch has more than thirty years of experience in clinical chemistry and toxicology, and twenty years in point-of-care testing. In 2005, he joined the Medical Laboratories of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta where he currently serves as Director of Clinical Chemistry, Toxicology, and Point-of-Care Testing. That same year Dr. Koch joined the faculty at Emory University where he is currently a Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.

From 2001-2005, he was Associate Director of the Clinical Pathology Laboratories in the Department of Safety Assessment at Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, PA. During the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Koch was Director of Clinical Chemistry at the Clinical Laboratories at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison.

He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry, a Fellow of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry, and a member of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, for which he has held several leadership roles, including President in 2015.

Dr. Koch earned a B.S. in Chemistry at Purdue in 1974 and a Ph.D. in 1979, studying analytical chemistry with Dr. Kissinger.