2008 Wall of Fame Honoree
Rhonda K. Roby, MPH, MS
Forensic Biochemist, University of North Texas
Graduate of Putnam City North High School, 1981

Rhonda Roby is a forensic scientist, but her career keeps making her part of history.

When the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001, Roby and a team of scientists were put into place to analyze thousands of samples of DNA to identify victims of the terrorist attack.

To help determine if a set of skeletal remains were those of Christopher Columbus, Roby worked with a team in Portugal.

When the Chilean government wanted to identify murder and torture victims of the Pinochet regime, Roby was asked to act as the lead forensic geneticist.

To find out whether skeletal remains excavated from a grave near Yekaterinburg, Russia, were the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters, Roby was called in to be part of the investigative team.

For identifications of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, Roby was summoned.

When Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s plane crashed in 1996, Ms. Roby was the chief DNA analyst for the identification of the victims.

Roby’s path from high school to high renown has been undeviating. After being part of the marching band, the French Club, Gifted program and Math Club at Putnam City North, she graduated in 1981.

She then received her bachelor of arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in biology and French in 1985. She obtained her masters of Public Health in forensic biochemistry and behavioral and environmental health sciences in 1989 from the University of California at Berkeley.

Roby served as the Technical Leader of the Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Section with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s Department of Defense DNA Registry, Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, from 1991 to 1997. During this time, Ms. Roby contributed to the development of the Department of Defense’s efforts to use mtDNA sequencing for remains identification, specifically involving missing servicemen and servicewomen in Southeast Asia, the Korean War and World War II.

From 1997 to 2003, Roby was the forensic manager in the Human Identification Department at Applied Biosystems. She and her forensic team conducted research, development and validation methods for forensic biological analyses. Roby has contributed to the fundamental applications as they relate forensic sciences in analytical methods, quality assurance and software analyses.

It was during her time at Applied Biosystems that terrorists drove planes into the World Trade Center in New York. On 9/11, after already talking with her brother in New York and confirming he was OK, Roby found herself in another phone conversation.

“That day, I got a phone call and was told, ‘We anticipate half a million to a million specimens,’” she says. “They didn’t know how many people had survived. With what they were able to see, with the sheer impact, they knew it would be lots and lots of people.”

Roby says over time, the number of specimens to be tested decreased as the numbers of survivors and victims became more clear, but she and the other scientists who worked together had to move quickly to establish protocols that were not only legal, but would also ensure the highest amount of accuracy in the shortest amount of time.

“We knew the data analysis would be incredible and was something we weren’t prepared for,” she says. “We didn’t know how we would handle that.”

Roby said multiple teams of forensic scientists cooperated to establish a system that would accurately analyze the 21,000 specimens they received from the WTC attack.

Currently, Roby conducts research and development of methods at the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for the Center’s Missing Persons Program.

“We have thousands of missing persons around the country and possibly hundreds of skeletal remains in a single medical examiner’s office that nobody can link to anybody,” she says. “So if we can sweep the dust off an old box of skeletal remains that’s been sitting in a medical examiner’s office for 20 years, and if this lab can test those remains and create a DNA profile, and if this program can get the visibility it needs for families to submit their DNA for comparison to these old skeletal remains, multiple identifications can be made,” Roby says.

Roby says she looks forward to helping the DNA lab become more efficient without losing accuracy, and she says the robotics and chemistry used to extract DNA from samples from victims and their families would speed the time in which comparisons — and potential matches — could be made without sacrificing any accuracy.

“What we want to do is drop in the technology into the lab here like we did for the World Trade Center so they can process the samples in a higher throughput fashion,” Roby says.

Roby earned her masters of Science in genetics and evolution in 2006 from the University of Granada in Spain. She recently completed her requirements for a European doctorate certificate at the same institution. In relation to her forensic genetics doctorate degree, she won a competition for best scientific paper and will receive recognition this summer at the University of Granada.

A world-renowned scientist, Roby joins former superintendent Leo Mayfield, famed physician and fitness expert Kenneth Cooper, M.D., astronaut Neil Woodward and well-known orthopedic surgeon Carlan Yates, M.D., as members of Putnam City’s Wall of Fame. Her induction into the Wall of Fame will come during the Putnam City Public Schools Foundation annual Celebration of Excellence Banquet on April 22.