This Week At CART – Madeleine Shehadey

Hello! My name is Maddie Shehadey, and I am currently a senior in the Forensic Research lab at CART, and last year I was in the Biotechnology lab. Last year in Biotechnology, I got to explore my passion for science, chemistry, and lab work to the fullest by learning really cool hands-on procedures and techniques that scientists use in the real world. I dream of becoming a chemist and researching in a lab for my future career, and both Biotechnology and Forensics at CART have been excellent at preparing me for that. My current and former CART teachers are so passionate and truly enjoy their jobs, which I greatly appreciate since a teacher’s attitude toward their job can have a significant impact on their students’ education. They make all of their lessons so engaging because we always have activities that allow us to apply our knowledge and learn about real-world applications. All of my current and former CART teachers also have wonderful personalities and I genuinely look up to them as my role models. I enjoy visiting my former Biotechnology teachers almost every day – I like to give them updates about this year and love talking to them about science!

So far, in the Forensics lab, we have completed two major projects. For Project 1, we learned all about various careers that visit crime scenes. My group specifically learned about the career of a police officer/sheriff. Project 2 involved us becoming experts in a specific type of crime scene evidence. Our teachers created crime scenes for us to collect evidence from as Crime Scene Technicians. My group and I collected hairs and fibers found at the scene. We also played the role of Trace Evidence Analysts by analyzing and comparing our crime scene evidence to samples from various suspects. Once we made a match for the hairs and fibers we found, we helped prove a suspect guilty as forensic expert witnesses in a mock trial.

This week at CART, we started Project 3, which is about criminal psychology, profiling, and psychopathy. I will be researching con artist Frank Abagnale, who is the author and main subject of the book we are reading in English, Catch Me If You Can. We have also been learning about blood pattern analysis recently.

It’s amazing how much forensics relies on science, and I enjoy learning about how my passion can be applied in ways I hadn’t thought about before. I look forward to what else we will be learning about later this year!