The Department of Justice Sciences is pleased to announce that Dr. Elizabeth Gardner is the new Director of the department's forensic science program.

Dr. Gardner replaces Dr. Jason Linville who held the post for 9 years and will remain as a core forensic science faculty member.

Dr. Gardner joined the department in 2007. She received a BS in chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Michigan State university. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Argonne National Laboratory and was a Faculty Fellow at NASA. She has served as a consultant to the City of El Paso Police Department, and been a visiting faculty member at Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez (Juarez, Mexico) and Purdue University. She also spent six years on the faculty at the University of Texas-El Paso.

Dr. Gardner's research interests include drug chemistry and criminalistics. Her most recent work has involved investigations into "legal highs" and the contamination of circulating currency with illicit drugs.