Faculty & Staff Profiles

Samantha Sawyer, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Forensic Science
Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences

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Samantha Sawyer

Education

  • Postdoctoral Training, The Emerging Pathogens Institute and the Department of Geography, University of Florida
  • Ph.D., Entomology, Texas A&M University
  • B.S., Biological Sciences, Bridgewater State University

About Samantha

Dr. Sawyer is a board-certified Forensic Entomologist and principal investigator of the Decomposition and Theoretical (D.E.A.T.H.) Ecology Laboratory. Dr. Sawyer started private consulting in cases of death, neglect, and abuse involving insect evidence in 2017 and became board certified in 2023. She has worked with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies as well as private parties, veterinarians, and attorneys to provide forensically important timelines and context to investigations involving insect evidence. In addition, Dr. Sawyer has consulted in cases involving environmental contamination. Dr. Sawyer regularly runs workshops to teach personnel how to collect entomological evidence during investigations to improve the quality of entomological reports.

In her graduate studies, Dr. Sawyer studied the role of mass mortality events on ecosystem structure and function as well as the competition between vertebrate and invertebrate scavengers for carrion resources. During her time, she developed a mathematical model to predict scavenger population outcomes from mass casualty events. As part of her postdoctoral work, she applied this mathematical model to estimate the amplification potential of Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of Anthrax) by necrophagous flies following a mass die off to assess health risks to humans, domestic, and non-domestic animals. She has since written a chapter in the second edition of the textbook Carrion Ecology, Evolution, and Their Applications on aggregated mortality events and their roles in ecosystem function and health.

Following her postdoc, she became an assistant professor of forensic science at Curry College in August 2022 where she taught forensic, biology, and ecology courses. There she started the D.E.A.T.H. Ecology Laboratory, where she studied land use patterns of wildlife and necrophagous insects in recreationally used wetlands to predict pathogen and human-wildlife conflict risk. She expanded this research to compare the accuracy of using necrophagous flies to detect Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium parvum in comparison to traditional collection methods (scat collection). With her experience, she is part of a working group to propose a new subfield of forensic entomology: environmental forensic entomology, with themes related to her research. She joined the University of New Haven in January 2025.

Research Interests

Dr. Sawyer’s research interests include traditional medicolegal entomological studies, such as the factors that can influence the rate of development in forensically important flies, including chemical and biological factors. Dr. Sawyer also studies environmental forensic entomology or using insects as monitors of biological and chemical toxins within ecosystems. As an extension of this research, Dr. Sawyer conducts field research in wild and agricultural settings to monitor vertebrate animals that serve as vectors and reservoirs of pathogens or competitors for carrion resources and their interaction with necrophagous insects.

For more information on current and past research, please visit: ForensicEntomologistNewEngland.com

Professional Societies

American Academy of Forensic Sciences
American Board of Forensic Entomology
North American Forensic Entomology Association
Entomological Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Related Links Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic SciencesB.S. in Forensic ScienceM.S. in Forensic Science