Jessica E. Whitney

Jessica is a third-year doctoral candidate working in Dr. Keith Morris’ research group. Her research focuses on evaluating forensic/investigative genetic genealogy methods with interest in computational metrics for relationship classification given challenging population structure.

Jessica earned her Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science with a minor in Strategic Intelligence from Liberty University in May 2021, where her undergraduate research on “Changes in the Microbiome at the Onset and End of Decomposition” was also published in the Journal of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Research.

Jessica completed her Master of Science in Forensic and Investigative Science from West Virginia University in May of 2023, and was able to present her masters research at the American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS) in February 2023. While working on her doctoral research, Jessica has continued to present at both the 2025 American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS) and the 2025 European Academy of Forensic Science (EAFS) conferences. While at West Virginia University, she was and remains a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Biology Department.