Course Description
This course provides a basic overview of cognitive bias, what causes it and how to help mitigate it. The training includes the application of bias in relation to latent print examination, what increases the risk of bias in latent print examination and potential methods for minimizing those risks. Also covered are “debiasing” techniques, risk factors for cognitive bias, and methods for reducing the risk of cognitive bias.
Instructor Heather VanDeGrift
Heather VanDeGrift is a Certified Latent Print Examiner and has worked in the field of fingerprints for twenty-four years. Heather works in the Latent Print Unit at Seattle Police Department as a Latent Print Supervisor and Quality Manager. She started her career as a Jail Identification Technician taking prints in the King County Jail, before becoming a Tenprint Examiner, and then a Latent Print Examiner for King County Sheriff’s Office in 2001. In 2009 she took a 6 month leave of absence to work in Afghanistan processing IED’s for fingerprint evidence. Heather became certified as a Latent Print Examiner through the IAI in 2009. As a supervisor she still conducts casework, processes evidence in the lab, and responds to scenes. She is a member of the International Association for Identification and the Pacific Northwest Division of the IAI, a committee member, former Board member, and past president for the PNWD-IAI, and an observer on the ASB Friction Ridge Consensus Body. Outside of work Heather is a busy mom of 3 boys, amateur photographer, and hiker.