Their nearly 3-week tour in November and December included meetings with their forensic science counterparts and visits to laboratories in California, Texas, Georgia, and the Washington, D.C., area. At each stop, they spoke with leaders of the crime labs about the qualifications of laboratory employees, how they track the handling of evidence and other procedures to ensure that the crime labs meet the highest professional standards.

“We expressed a wish to learn about certification, quality control, and processes and procedures. … This is for the improvement of the quality of services we’re providing,” said Olga Belozyorova, a forensic expert in the biological evidence section of the Main Bureau of Forensic Medicine under the Ministry of Health. She noted that her counterparts in the American laboratories were very open to answering her and her colleagues’ questions during their tour.

“We were provided with enormous amounts of literature and information,” she said after she returned from the trip.

Workers in forensics laboratories analyze physical evidence in a wide range of criminal cases, including those involving deaths or serious injuries, sexual assaults, and cases involving toxic substances such as narcotics. Training and upgrades of laboratory equipment can enhance forensic scientists’ ability to provide the hard evidence that is at the heart of many criminal investigations.

The forensic scientists from laboratories in Tashkent, Urgench, and Ferghana toured the U.S. under the sponsorship of the International Visitor Leadership Program, the U.S. State Department’s premier program for professional exchanges. Established and emerging leaders in fields of government, economics, media, education and other key fields go to the United States to meet with their counterparts and build lasting professional relationships.

Since 2006, more than 150 professionals from Uzbekistan - leaders in fields such as religion, business, the arts, education and science - have taken part in the International Visitors program.

The U.S. Embassy in Tashkent has an ongoing partnership with the forensic science laboratories in Uzbekistan. Earlier this year, U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland noted that the U.S. Government had invested nearly $1 million in equipment and upgrades at the forensic laboratories, to conduct training with visiting experts and to support professional development conferences.

That relationship continued in December with the visit to Uzbekistan of Dr. Ashraf Mozayani, the chief toxicologist at the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office in Houston, Texas, and Dr. Douglas Posey, an associate medical examiner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They took part in a forensics conference in Tashkent, met with colleagues in Bukhara, and have been working with their counterparts in Uzbekistan as the forensic laboratories move toward accreditation by the International Organization for Standardization (IOS).