Faculty, staff, and alumni of the National Center for Media Forensics (NCMF) will play key roles in three important media forensics conferences this year.

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ (AAFS) annual conference was held in Denver on February 19-24, 2024. AAFS is a multidisciplinary professional organization that provides leadership to advance science and its application to the legal system. NCMF director Catalin Grigoras and Senior Professional Research Assistant Cole Whitecotton led a workshop titled “Applications of Digital Forensic Audio/Video for Real Life Challenges with DeepFake Video, Audio, and Artificial Intelligence.” Additionally, four NCMF alumni presented papers, and NCMF lecturer Gregory Wales was accepted as the AAFS’ newest Digital Media Sciences section fellow. Wales’ designation represents a big honor, according to those familiar with AAFS. On Thursday night of the conference, the NCMF hosted a reception which drew over 35 current NCMF students, alumni, industry partners, and media forensic colleagues.

Currently, NCMF staff and faculty are preparing to host the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence’s (SWGDE) May meeting on the Auraria Campus. The meeting will be held May 13-16, 2024. As a Standards Setting Organization (SSO), the SWGDE serves 80 member organizations by disseminating information crucial to the defense of our local and national security. SWGDE’s member organizations include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, several local law enforcement offices in a multitude of states, the Denver District Attorney's Office, and Walmart.

Finally, NCMF will take on more key roles in The Audio Engineering Society’s (AES) 8th International Conference on Audio Forensics here in Denver June 27-29, 2024. AES is an international organization that unites audio engineers, creative artists, scientists and students worldwide by promoting advances in audio and disseminating new knowledge and research. While the organization hosts a handful of conferences related to the audio industry, this particular conference in Denver in June is focused on audio forensics. NCMF’s Whitecotton and NCMF alum Dante Fazio (‘19) will co-chair the conference. Additionally, recent NCMF outstanding graduate Cesar Lamschtein (‘24) serves as secretary and NCMF alum Gretchel Lomboy (‘18) as Treasurer. Many other NCMF alumni will serve as paper and poster reviewers, while NCMF alum James Zjalic ('17) and NCMF lecturer Gregory Wales serve as co-chairs of the papers and posters committee.

In addition to providing expertise at these three conferences, NCMF staff and faculty have also contributed to the media forensics field in other ways this academic year. Girgoras’ expertise has been called on in two widely publicized news stories, one involving a series of threatening phone calls made to schools between September 2022 and April 2023 and another involving an impersonation case in Baltimore. Whitecotton also contributed expertise to a news story by Politifact concerning Princess Kate’s edited photos that were circulating in March.

In November 2023, the NCMF hosted a group of journalists from a number of European countries. Girgoras presented an overview of media forensics, with specific emphasis on media that is manipulated that could affect media outlets. The group eagerly engaged with Grigoras' presentation, asking questions and appreciating his expertise.