Greg Hampikian is a busy guy. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on forensic DNA, is founder and director of the Idaho Innocence Project, publishes in numerous scientific journals, and is a contributing columnist for The New York Times. But wait, there’s more. The professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University Professor is also a songwriter, a playwright and a charter fellow in the National Academy of Inventors.
What’s the change you are trying to make in the world?
To identify and eliminate bias from science, justice, business, and social policy.
What is it about forensic evidence that turns you on?
Initially, it was the general problem-solving instinct that every CSI or Colombo fan feels. Now it’s simply a desire to get it right.
How has forensic DNA evidence changed the way we consider the concept of innocence?
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, founders of the Innocence Project, have led a true revolution in how we assess errors in criminal investigations. For example, we have learned that the human mind is not really a good recording medium. (Ever lose your keys or forget where you’ve parked?)
But it’s important to keep in mind that the people we have freed over the years with DNA are the tip of the iceberg. It takes far too much time and expense to overturn a bad conviction—prevention is the only meaningful remedy. I tell new workers at the Project that what we do is like unbaking a cake; it’s incredibly difficult, time-consuming, very expensive—and requires great ingenuity.
The DNA exonerations are now more straightforward than they once were, but we need to apply the lessons we learned about improper identification, interrogation and forensic practices in cases where there is no DNA. The molecule of heredity has given us incredible insights into human errors like subjective bias, unsound forensic science, and harsh interrogations; now we need to change the methods that we know lead to wrongful convictions.
What’s the most interesting case you’ve worked on?
It’s always the current ones. Puzzles are most interesting before they are solved.
The most heartbreaking case?
These are all terrible crimes. They are horrors that I wish no one had to read about, let alone go through. Wrongful convictions take the terror of a committed crime, and add the long-term “kidnapping” of an innocent person by the state. I do find it especially frustrating when we can’t get an answer, for example when all the evidence has been destroyed.
Is a high-profile case, such as your work on the Amanda Knox case different from others
Sometimes I’m asked to explain a case to the public, and that is a different role than the lab work. I like to teach, so I don’t mind that role, but when so many people are interested in a case a lot of my time goes into that role. I would not want to do that every day.
Why should business be interested in an initiative of social responsibility such as the Innocence Project?
The same lessons that we learn about accidental subjective bias, improper reasoning, junk science and statistics apply to the business world. I have talked to business leaders, sometimes along with an exoneree, and the feedback we get is always very positive. Entrepreneurs understand long suffering for success; and exonerations hit that sweet spot between pure rationalism and outrageous hope.
What’s the biggest change you’ve made in your professional life?
We published a paper not long ago called “Subjectivity and Bias in DNA Mixture Interpretation,” where we gave the same DNA data to 17 scientists at a crime lab and asked if the suspect was “Included,” “Excluded,” or the data was “Inconclusive.” The data was from an actual case where another state crime lab had included a suspect in a DNA mixture from a rape—and he is still in jail.
The experts at the second lab came up with all three possible answers. The Economist magazine and New Scientist all picked up on our study, but more importantly experts in the field have been citing it. The amazing conclusion was that only 1 of the 17 scientists at the second lab, who did not know any of the crime’s story, agreed with the first lab’s conclusion.
The lesson is that scientists are no different than other human beings—we need to be shielded from possible bias and subjectivity. It also showed that not all DNA is alike—mixtures containing DNA from several people are very complex, and experts will disagree on the basic conclusions. In those cases, juries need to hear from more than just the state’s lab expert.
Change is hard—do you have any tricks you’d like to share for making it easier?
I have spent a couple of years working on the question of novelty in human systems like the internet, and biological systems—DNA and proteins. What we have found is that nature tries everything using just chance to power those changes. But we humans take risks. It took Mother Nature a billion years to get life out of the water, another half-billion to get it six feet off the ground. But human beings went from bicycles to six feet off the ground at Kitty Hawk in one lifetime—another lifetime and we were on the Moon. Risk defines our species. Mother Nature’s investment strategy is sound, but extremely conservative—maximally diversified. That’s why there are so many different types of butterflies, but none on the Moon. Considering that we inhabit a middle-aged planet circling a middle-aged star, I believe that the human penchant for risk is life on Earth’s best hope.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Focusing on one problem at a time.
Anything else you’re working on right now we should know about?
I have what the lab jokingly refers to as a my “manifesto.” It’s about 13 pages long and explains what I have learned about novelty in the universe. We are also developing cancer drugs based on “Nullomers,” a term I coined for the shortest sequences of amino acids or DNA not found in nature. We discovered them and published our results in an initial paper, and this week my colleague handed me the draft of a new paper summing up our work on 65 cancers growing in our Boise State University Lab.
What are you reading right now?
Akhil Reed Amar’s America's Constitution: A Biography—I am hoping to start a book club around it. Sex and Death, a book on philosophy in biology. I also love the New Scientist, The New York Times, and the Idaho Statesman.
Listening to?
Radio Boise, the show Glitch in the System—and everything else, too. Radio Lab is the best talk show, This American Life is great, too. Pandora—I found using songs as stations works best with the algorithm. I like Bill Callahan, Lana Del Rey, Pink, Harry Nielsen, Regina Spektor, Beethoven, Neo Tango. I have also started listening to the great interviews, speeches and comedians that are on the web: Jimi Hendrix on the Dick Cavett Show, Martin Luther King, 20th century poets, Dean Martin roasts. To the annoyance of all my partisan friends, I occasionally listen to very diverse talk radio in the car: Democracy Now, Diane Rehm, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Miller, Kevin Miller…and um, George Noory.
Watching?
I watch mostly when I am on planes or doing chores. C-Span Book TV (best TV ever), Supreme Court oral arguments (You don’t even have to watch), BBC science shows, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Enlightened. I love comedies and have seen the movie Bridesmaids more times than I should.
Who inspires you?
My Dad. Not for his professional accomplishments—he was a good man who did what was needed for his family. He loved to think, eat, tinker and laugh.
Favorite color?
I like those light-blue Christmas lights, but really I don’t have a favorite.
Rock, paper, or scissors?
Paper. A new, narrow-ruled notebook, with a fine-point black, Bic Accountant pen (the orange plastic ones)—she was my best friend as a kid.
Who are you following online?
I still like the journalists who write for papers where editors actually fact check. Most of my online reading is academic journals, Facebook, and using Google to settle arguments at home. On the latter, we have a bet jar—$7 a guess. I have found that I am a most prolific guesser—and it has cost me.
What’s one question you’d like to ask yourself—and answer?
What are you supposed to do today?
How should people connect with you on social media?
Say hi at Dawson Taylor coffee shop or the Crux.
To see my chosen stuff, go to my university site.
My unedited TEDx starts at 1:46 - TEDx