Immersive Summer Experience Enables High Schoolers to Gather Evidence and Collaborate to Piece Together the Scene of a Crime

For Beatrix Vanosel, a rising senior at Darien High School, the morning began with creating an impression of her shoe using dental stone and water. Later, she closely observed its pattern in detail. Like so much in evidence collection, shoeprints at a crime scene can tell a story and lead an investigator to a suspect.

“I’ve never done that before and it was really interesting,” Vanosel said. “CSI is a combination of all the things I like about science. My dream job is to be a forensic pathologist. I really love the field. I’d prefer to be in a lab, but crime scene investigation is a huge thing for me.” She wants to study forensic pathology in college and plans to apply to the University of New Haven.

In July, she and nearly two dozen other high school students, took part in one of two week-long sessions of the CSI Academy, one of the most popular pre-college programs run by the University. Students from as far away as Texas and Puerto Rico took part in the programs.

Students who will be in grades 10-12 in the fall spent the week delving into the field, learning about the history of policing, investigations, and constitutional law, writing a search warrant, processing evidence for fingerprints, investigating and documenting a crime scene, collecting and packaging evidence, and presenting their findings to a panel including investigators who work in the field.

‘We collaborated well right from the beginning’

The participants learned that in a crime scene so much can hinge on a fragment of material – broken glass, a piece of paper torn from a notebook, a bit of fiber. In the forensic lab, Alex Singapore, a rising junior from Fairfield, and Tatiana Arruda, a rising senior from Somers, donned white lab coats, gloves, and protective eyewear, and teamed up with eight other students to match ceramic fragments.

Several plates had been broken, and the pieces mixed randomly, shaken in paper bags and spread out around the workbench. Their job was to study patterns and try to fit the pieces together.

“What I’ve found this week is that, as a group, we work pretty seamlessly together,” Singapore said. “We collaborated well right from the beginning.”

Arruda said she has loved “hearing other students’ perspectives on everything we are doing, like collecting evidence, and putting everyone’s ideas into one collective thought. Not all students our age get to have this kind of experience. I know it will help us moving forward.”

Maria Torre, M.S., senior lecturer in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences and a CSI Academy instructor, said the students have been “super engaged. They are really interested in going into forensic science, crime-scene work, or law enforcement.”

On day one, she discusses “the importance of the work at a crime scene and the consequences of poor scene work and investigations,” Torre said. “We talk about wrongful convictions and what could happen if those responsible for the scene were to conduct an improper investigation. While it is important that the person responsible for a crime be held accountable, it is more important that the correct person is arrested, and that we keep those who are not responsible out of prison.”

Following lectures and discussions, the students began hands-on work. “I want them to discover the different aspects of the field and think about subdisciplines– footwear analysis, fracture matching, fingerprint work, on-scene work,” Torre said.

By the week’s end, the students were broken into groups and brought everything they’d learned into the Henry C. Lee College’s crime scene facility. They were walking into four very specific and, as Torre pointed out, “very purposely chaotic crime scenes” – a gunshot scene, a sexual assault scene, and a drug overdose scene. They had to investigate, gather, and package evidence and, on the final day, present their findings to their families and to a team that included investigators who work in the field.

‘I’m up for the challenge’

Monica Chabros ’25 M.S. and Flavia Bucci Casari ’25 M.S., CSI Academy teaching assistants and second-year graduate students in Forensic Technology, said they were impressed by how well the students worked together. “Collaboration is very important,” Chabros said. “They need to talk with each other about their strengths because when they investigate the crime scene, they each take on a different role – photography, videography, collecting evidence, and taking notes.”

“We help them with the process and guide them,” Bucci Casari said. “The mock crime scene is very challenging, and they have been doing great. Now they are ready for it.”

Kallie Burke of Long Island, New York, and Jeilyn Roman from Pequannock, New Jersey, said they couldn’t wait to dive into the crime scenes.

“I’m excited to see what the mock scenes have in store for us,” Roman said. “I’m up for the challenge, and I look forward to seeing how other people’s minds work – how each person in our group approaches a crime scene.”

Almost all of the students in the session chose to stay on campus for the duration of the academy rather than commute, giving them the chance to experience campus living. “A big group of us sat together that first day, and we automatically clicked,” said Roman, who wants to study forensic psychology. “We started talking about forensic science, and we had so much else to also talk about, and we became friends.”

Burke had visited campus last year and liked it so much that when a teacher told her about the summer program, “I knew I wanted to be here,” she said.

For Arruda, coming to the CSI Academy is a step toward a dream she’s had since she was young – to go into the field of forensic investigation – and she plans to apply to the University of New Haven.

“My cousin is a state trooper in Hartford, and she’s been such an inspiration to me, telling me about the things she does daily on the job, looking for evidence and talking to suspects and witnesses,” she said. “She gives so much to her job and gets so much from it.

“Being here has been a great experience,” Arruda continued. “With all that I’ve been learning and with the friendships I’ve made, I’m so happy to say I have been part of this.”