Mills, De Etta Kay

Positions

Associate Professor, Biological Sciences , College of Arts, Sciences & Education

millsd@fiu.edu

Center for Advanced Research in Forensic Science
Google Scholar
LinkedIn
ResearchGate

overview

Dr. DeEtta (Dee) Mills is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and current Director of the Forensic DNA Profiling Facility (FDPF) within the International Forensic Research Institute (IFRI) at Florida International University. Dr. Mills is also the Graduate Program Director for the MS in Forensic Sciences, a FEPAC accredited program. Research areas of expertise are in DNA separation methods, non-human DNA profiling, development of novel methods for DNA profiling as well as expertise in the soil microbiome for soil provenance and forensic applications. Funding sources have included NSF (novel separation methods), NIJ (work force training grant), USDA-FS (equine DNA profiling), FBI (trace epithelial cell collection), National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency (soil forensics), and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (fungal pathogen detection). Dr. Mills and her students have filed two patents (vacuum collection device for trace evidence; pathogen gold nanoparticle biosensor). Dr. Mills received her BS in Biology (Honors, Cell Biology) from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS in 1988. From 1989-1991, she worked at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama, as a senior research assistant that studied the evolutionary divergence of alpheids (snapping shrimp) across the Isthmus of Panama. She earned an MS in Biology in 1993 from Texas Christian University. From 1994-1996, she worked for the Radiation Biology Branch, FDA, Rockville, MD. Dr. Mills received her PhD from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA where she optimized several molecular tools to study the microbial community ecology and now applies those principles to forensic microbiology studies. She joined Florida International in 2001 and was awarded the prestigious NSF ADVANCE fellowship for women in 2004-2008. She was appointed as the Director of the Forensic DNA Profiling Facility (FDPF) in 2004. Dr. Mills has been awarded > $1.8M in grants/contracts that have spanned several different disciplines but are based in molecular microbiology and forensic biology. Dr. Mills has assisted both Miami-Dade and Broward crime laboratories with equine DNA typing in horse slaughtering cases that have taken place in the last few years in S Florida. The emphasis of her research and within the Facility is to continue to develop new and novel techniques for forensics. For example, with funding from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, she developed a novel approach for soil forensics where soil microbiota DNA profiles are able to provide, with high accuracy, provenance of a soil sample. Her students are now optimizing a multi-tagged, multi-taxon method for soil forensics/provenance using NexGen sequencing technology and bioinformatics classification algorithms.

research interests

Functional metagenomics: Studying functional microbial guilds responsible for the biogeochemical cycling in soil provides a background upon which anthropogenic disturbances of these critical cycles can be better understood. Disease and dogs. Training detector canines to the scent of an invasive fungal plant pathogen will more rapidly identify infected trees and mitigate the spread of the disease. Non-human DNA typing: Unique scent profiles are generated by small molecules produced by the MHC metabolome. Understanding scent profiles and genetics relationships will increase understanding of behavioral mate selection in inbred populations.