Dr. Mark McCoy, recipient of the Fulbright Award in Digital Forensics, poses for a photo in the Forensic Science Building Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Photo by Garett Fisbeck, The Vista
Over the years, the UCO Forensic Science Institute has built a reputation for being a first-rate facility and learning environment, and has been called “world-class.” After one faculty member received a scholarship to help share UCO’s forensic expertise with the rest of the world, that moniker has never been truer.
Dr. Mark McCoy, a professor in both the Forensic Science Institute and the School of Criminal Justice, was the recent recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship which will allow him to lend a hand in developing the digital forensic programs at several universities in Australia.
The Fulbright Program gives merit-based grants to students, scholars and professionals from all fields who wish to study or practice their craft abroad. The program was created in the 1940s by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and is known as one of the most prestigious programs of its nature in the country.
McCoy, who will be leaving for the Great Down Under on March 9, was understandably excited when he heard the news.
“I was really pleased. I’ve never been to Australia and I’m looking forward to going,” McCoy said. “It’s just going to be a great experience, not only working with other faculty and scholars in the field but to meet new people and develop other relationships.”
McCoy teaches many classes at UCO, but his trip won’t necessarily mean any time off for his students, as the majority of it falls on spring break. The class time he does miss will be filled in by other members of the faculty.
As part of the Fulbright selection process, scholarship applicants are chosen by a panel based on their achievement in a certain area of study. Those who are selected are then put on a list with the rest of the recipients in their field, and wait for a third party to claim them for their program.
In McCoy’s case, that third party was Canberra University in southeastern Australia.
“They have a forensic science institute, and they’re thinking about working with their information technology people and computer science people to incorporate a digital forensics program as part of that,” he said. “I’m going out there to help with curriculum and in teaching other faculty the best ways to teach digital forensics.”
Additionally, McCoy will also visit and exchange ideas with the University of Southern Australia, which already has a digital forensics program.
The UCO Forensic Science Institute and School of Criminal Justice are known for their close working relationship with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the Medical Examiners Office. It was at least partially this integration between school, law enforcement and crime investigation agencies which made McCoy so attractive to the southern region of Australia, which hopes to achieve something similar.
“I’m going to meet with the Australian Federal Police and try to work on the same cooperation we have with the State Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies here. They’re trying to establish that same kind of relationship,” he said.
His upcoming trip to Australia won’t be the only time McCoy has found himself in a new location. McCoy is originally from Michigan, but he would later find out that he wouldn’t be there forever.
“When I got out of college, I went into the Marine Corps on active duty,” he said. “While I was in the Marine Corps, my parents, family moved to Oklahoma, so when I came off active duty I moved here.”
After arriving in Oklahoma at the age of 25, McCoy went to work for the Tulsa Police Department before eventually finding a job with OSBI, where he specialized in computer crimes and the forensic examination of digital evidence for more than 20 years.
When in his 40s, McCoy decided it was time to leave active work in law enforcement but wasn’t ready to call himself totally retired.
“In law enforcement, you have the opportunity to have a 20-year retirement, so I figured I needed to do something else when I retired, because I wouldn’t be very old,” he said.
McCoy had already been an adjunct professor at UCO, so he decided to make the move to becoming a full-time instructor. According to McCoy, one of the best parts about working in an institute of such acclaim in the field is being around the great expertise of its staff.
“The faculty here bring over 300 years of professional law enforcement experience, actually working in the field. All of us have prior experience working in whatever discipline we were in,” he said.
While keeping busy in both law enforcement and education, McCoy has reached a point in his life where he has actually spent more time in Oklahoma than in his birthplace of Michigan, and can now call himself truly settled.
“I’m used to Oklahoma now,” he said. “I don’t miss the snow in April in Michigan.”
