Kevin Kiesler, Research Biologist, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Kevin Kiesler holds a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Professional Science Master’s in Applied Biosciences, both from the University of Arizona. He has worked as a Research Biologist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since September 2011. His research has been focused on next-generation sequencing (NGS) for human identification applications in the U.S. legal system. As benchtop scale NGS instrumentation became widely available over the previous decade and commercial entities began making kits to facilitate NGS as an alternative to capillary electrophoresis in forensic DNA analysis, Kevin’s research has focused on characterizing the performance of commercial kits and providing reference materials for measurement assurance in the field. Prior to NIST, Kevin held R&D positions in two private sector companies, developing genome mapping technologies for clinical microbiology testing and designing microarrays for genotyping HLA genes for bone marrow transplantation compatibility assessment. Before that, he worked at the University of Arizona Genomics Core facility providing full support for DNA sequencing, fragment analysis, mutation detection, qPCR and microarrays used in functional genomics studies. His master’s project was focused on developing Y-STR multiplex assays, which are still in use by Family Tree DNA as part of the Y-111 test for genealogy in the paternal lineage.
