Anna S. Duggar became the full-time Director of the Forensic Chemistry program in the Department of Chemistry in 2010, after having worked in the Department as adjunct faculty starting in 2004. Her research interests include photon and electron microscopy of particulate evidence, false negative results in common tests for hemoglobin, bloodspatter pattern analysis, and the application of science to crime scene practice.
She is a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Benjamin Franklin High School. Before coming to Loyola, she taught at the University of West Florida, Tulane University, and Tulane University City College, and taught at a number of police academies as an FBI-IDC POST-qualified instructor. From 2006 through 2010, she worked as Director of the New Orleans Police Department Crime Laboratory and has worked as a forensic analyst since 2000, first with Office of Chief Medical Examiner, New York City; then in Pensacola, FL, with Florida Department of Law Enforcement; then with New Orleans Police Department Crime Lab and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab. Her casework has led to the provision of courtroom testimony in Criminal District Court in Orleans Parish and St. Tammany Parish, and in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana.
She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and the McCrone Research Institute Alumni Association and a Diplomate of the American Board of Criminalistics.
Recent Publications
- Duggar, A.S.; Kubic, T.A. Evaluation of plasma cleaning as an approach for the preparation of soil minerals for forensic comparison by photon and electron microscopy. J Forensic Sci. 2021, 66:1452–1463. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14693
- De Forest, P.R.; Duggar, A.S. The importance of microscopy in forensic science casework. 2014. Presentation made at the Eastern Analytical Symposium, Somerset, NJ.
- Eng, M.; Petraco, N.D.; Petraco, N.; Duggar, A.S. The microscopic study of the statistical significance of household dust specimens. In Proceedings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Washington, DC, February 2013.
- Krotulski, A.J.; Osawa, K.A.; Duggar, A.S. False negatives and decreased sensitivity of heme tests on a leather substrate: incidence and causes. In Proceedings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Washington, DC, February 2013.
- Duggar, A.S.; Shaler, R.C.; De Forest, P. R. Identification of initial and secondary stains in overlapping bloodspatter patterns. In Proceedings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Seattle, WA, 2001.
Degrees
Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center; M.Phil, CUNY Graduate Center; M.S., John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York); B.A., Emory University
Classes Taught
General Chemistry I lecture and lab
General Chemistry II
Chemistry of the Crime Scene
Forensic Methods
Analytical Chemistry Lab
Instrumental Analysis
Areas of Expertise
- Forensic Chemistry
- Analytical Chemistry