Ana Salazar graduated from Loyola University Maryland with a Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Studies. Throughout her undergraduate studies, she focused on forensic biology and forensic science methodology, such as Forensic Entomology, DNA analysis, and fingerprint identification.
During her studies, Ana interned at the Dauphin County Coroner’s Office in Harrisburg. Throughout this experience she assisted in signal calls, for death investigations, where she was responsible for preserving scene integrity, photographing the scene, and retrieving decedents. She aided in conducting autopsies and decedent funeral home transfers. While at Dauphin County she attended the yearly Child Death Review Team meeting where doctors, nurses, pediatricians, child probation, child protective services, and drug and tobacco addiction review child death cases from the past year and determine if they could have been preventable.
From her experiences, Ana became aware of the fallibility of the criminal justice system with its application of unreliable methods to its high rates of wrongful convictions. The lack of funding for research in criminology and forensic methodology has allowed systemic, societal, racial, and scientific issues to persist in our current criminal justice system. She believes that combining valid scientific methods with criminology research can improve how cases are investigated to ensure stereotypes and ignorance do not influence rulings.
Ana is certain the Master of Science in Criminology program will allow her to gain a better understanding of the field and different ways to improve it.