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Dr. Tim Kalafut is an Associate Professor in the Forensic Science Department. He joined the faculty at Â鶹¾«Æ· in August 2020 after over 20 years as a practicing forensic DNA analyst. He earned a Chemistry degree with a music minor at Whitworth University in 1990. After completing his Ph.D. (Toxicology) at Texas A&M University in 1999, he spent 3 years as a DNA analyst at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas Texas. Dr. Kalafut spent the next 19 years at the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL) working on cases from military installations around the world.

Dr. Kalafut has testified in numerous military courts martial and in state courts as an expert witness for both the prosecution and the defense. While at the USACIL he was a key player in bringing probabilistic genotyping to the laboratory in the form of STRmixâ„¢ software and helped the Army lab become the first lab in the United States to adopt a fully continuous likelihood ratio for routine casework. In addition, Dr. Kalafut helped to develop the ArmedXpertâ„¢ DNA software package in use at crime labs across the country for mixture interpretation and management of case samples.

Dr. Kalafut has been an invited speaker at many forensic symposia and worked with a team of experts from the USACIL to deliver advanced mixture interpretation courses to hundreds of DNA examiners from dozens of crime labs across the country. He currently serves as a member of the Human Forensic Biology Sub-Committee for the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC).