Professor Simon A. Cole is in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University. Dr. Cole is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001) , which was awarded the 2003 Rachel Carson Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science, and more than 20 scholarly articles and book chapters about the scientific validity of fingerprint evidence and its use in the courts. His most recent book is Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (University of Chicago Press, 2008, with Michael Lynch, Ruth McNally & Kathleen Jordan). Dr. Cole has spoken widely on the subjects of fingerprinting, scientific evidence, and science and the law, and he has consulted and testified as an expert witness on the validity of fingerprint evidence. He has also written for many general interest publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, and Lingua Franca. He is a member of the American Judicature Society Commission on Forensic Science and Public Policy, and he is Co-Editor of the journal Theoretical Criminology.