ASTM International Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences has presented the Award of Merit to Susan Ballou, forensic science research program manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The Award of Merit, which includes the accompanying title of fellow, is ASTM’s highest organizational recognition for individual contributions to standards activities. E30 noted Ballou’s leadership and commitment to the development of international forensic sciences standards and her support in maintaining the important relationship between the committee and NIST.

Ballou, who joined ASTM in 2001, is a past chairman of Committee E30 and currently serves as secretary of the new Subcommittee E30.12 on Digital and Multimedia Evidence. She has contributed to the development and revision of several forensic interdisciplinary standards applicable across many forensic science disciplines. She was recognized with the E30 Forensics Award in 2009.

A graduate of the University of New Haven, where she received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, Ballou earned a master’s in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University. She joined the Office of Law Enforcement Standards at NIST in 2000 as a program manager, and was promoted to level V supervisor - forensic science and liaison to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Forensic Attribution in 2005. Ballou assumed her current role in 2014.

Ballou’s crime laboratory experience includes working on case samples involving illicit drugs, serology and trace evidence. Prior to NIST, she was a forensic chemist in the crime laboratory at the Montgomery County Crime Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland. She has qualified as an expert in 179 court appearances in Maryland and Virginia.

In addition to ASTM, Ballou is a diplomate of the American Board of Criminalistics and a member of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association for Identification and the Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and a recipient of the AAFS Criminalistics Section Mary E. Cowan Outstanding Service Award.

ASTM PR Contact: Erin K. Brennan, tel: +1.610.832.9602; ebrennan@astm.org   

Release #9855