Dr. Madelyn Kist joined the Forensic Science program as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Fall 2026 semester. Prior to working at Loyola, Dr. Kist received her PhD in Biomedical Science (Microbiology & Immunology) from Tulane University School of Medicine.  Her MS and BS are in Chemistry with a minor in forensic anthropology from Kent State University.  Dr. Kist has experience teaching lectures and labs in a variety of scientific disciplines, including microbiology, forensic science, human metabolism, and molecular biology.  

Dr. Kist will be teaching BIOL 366L, FRSC 370, and FRSC 370L.  We welcome her into the forensic science program and look forward to her development. 

Dr. DeFrancesco received the Best Innovation Award at the 2026 PEth in Mind meeting from The Society of PEth research (PEth-NET).  Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is a biomarker displaying high sensitivity and specificity as a screening biomarker for chronic alcohol use and abuse.  As such, there is significant need and potential for a method that can be used clinically to detect and quantitate PEth, and diagnose alcohol misuse by patients.  

Dr. DeFrancesco's research group has worked on the analysis of PEth using GC-EI-MS for several years, including a US Patent "Quantifying Phosphatidylethanol from Blood Samples" (patent no: 11,085,939).   The most recent work focuses on a novel derivatization method that shows increased specificity.  

Researchers in the DeFrancesco group who contributed to this project are: Mary McMillan (Class of 2014), Myesha Thomas (Class of 2019), Helen Dobbelmann (Class of 2024), Emma Katubig (Class of 2024), Samantha Morey (Class of 2024) and Alex Schepker (Class of 2027).  

 

Details from the meeting can be found here: