Renowned Crime Profiling Expert To Speak -- Some have called him a high-tech answer to Sherlock Holmes...

The Department of Urban Affairs and Planning welcomes Dr. Kim Rossmo, Director of Research with the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., who will give a talk entitled "Geographic Profiling: Environments of Serial Predators" on Tuesday, March 25 from 2-3 p.m. in Squires 150-154.

An on-line CNN report explains "geographic profiling, developed by detective Rossmo, tries to zero in on the suspect by using computers to track the mass of data flooding investigators' desks -- location, dates and times of crimes. The program then matches the information with what criminologists know about human nature." Rossmo's computerized tracking system takes the geographical data and uses it to profile an area where the offender most likely lives, within a half a mile. Most recently, Dr. Rossmo employed his profiling techniques in the investigation of the D.C. area sniper case.

Rossmo is an expert in policing offender profiling and environmental criminology. He is the author of Geographic Profiling (CRC Press, 1999) and a number of other articles, books, and reports, primarily in the area of criminal geography profiling. A 21-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department, Rossmo holds a Ph.D. in Criminology from British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, where he also earned a master's degree in criminology.

For more information, contact Diane Zahm, Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, at (540) 231-7503, or email dzahm@vt.edu.