Present Position:

Consultant in Forensic Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Final Analysis Forensics; Medical Investigator & Forensic Specialist, National Disaster Medical System, DMORT Region 10; Instructor, Washington State Criminal Justice (Police) Training Academy

Areas of Specialization:

Medico-legal Death Investigation, Bloodstain Pattern Analysis, Ballistics, Firearms & GSR Testing, Trace Evidence Analysis, Crime Scene Investigation & Event Reconstruction.

Education

• 1970 BA St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, Cum Laude
• 1975 MA University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• 1977 Ph.D. University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• 1982 Visiting Scholar: Stanford University, Stanford California
• 1986-1991 Preceptorship, Forensic Pathology, E.Q. Lacsina, MD, Preceptor

Diplomate, American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators, Registry #412

• Independent Consultant in Forensic Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Final Analysis Forensics (1984 - )
• Medical Investigator & Forensic Specialist, National Disaster Medical System, DMORT Region 10
(1998 - )
• Instructor, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission
(1995 - )
• Professor Emeritus and Former Department Chair, Pacific Lutheran University
• Consultant, B.C. Coroner's Service Forensic Unit (1988 - 1997)
• Consultant, King County Medical Examiner's Office (1993 - 1999)
• Consultant, Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office (1992 - 1999)
• Consultant, Puyallup Police Department, Investigations (1995 - )
• Formerly, Medical Investigator, King County Medical Examiner's Office (1992 - 1995)
• Formerly, Medical Investigator, Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office (1986 - 1992)

   I am the son of an artist and a physician. When I entered college, I wanted to know how a physician could observe a patient, X-ray, or lab test, explain the malady, and prescribe a treatment. I found that philosophers addressed these methodological issues, not biologists in undergraduate premedical programs. I majored in philosophy to learn how to think, and because I found that artists' best taught the skills of careful observation so central to science, I also majored in studio art. Both skills - thinking and observing - provide a solid foundation for my graduate & post-graduate work in forensic science and forensic medicine.

    Death investigation suited my life long interest in the puzzles of medical diagnosis and my eventual disinterest in practicing medicine. I found my niche both as a professor and medical investigator, focusing on forensic science and forensic medicine. As an independent consultant in forensic science and forensic medicine with Final Analysis Forensics, I apply science in the service of justice.

[Additional information about Dr. Nordby's career can be found in his book Dead Reckoning: The Art of Forensic Detection, CRC Press, 1999, and in his second book, Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific & Investigative Techniques, CRC Press, August 2002. Discussions of his work also appear in The Forensic Science of C.S.I. by Katherine Ramsland, Putnam, NY, chapter 6, especially pages 128-132.]

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