Sharon Lemons is the Acting Director/Quality Assurance Manager at the West Virginia State Police Forensic Laboratory. Any and all evidence collected at crime scenes in the state is processed through her facility:
DNA Analysis
Latent Print
Drug Identification
Toxicology
Fire Arms
Questioned Documents
Trace Evidence
Lemons has a daughter in grade school these days who is getting pressure to start figuring out what she wants to do with her life professionally. “I think it’s kind of hard sometimes; we don’t often know what we want to do,” Lemons said. But reflecting on her own life, she followed her broadest interests in things like science and biology to find her way to a career that she finds worthwhile and fulfilling.
Lemons says the people she works with are often finding answers that will incriminate and ultimately, send someone to jail. As a result, the work is heavily scrutinized, and employees must withstand heavy scrutiny before being hired. Lemons stressed that choices made early in life can have lasting ramifications.
“A lot of the applicants that we get from colleges,” she said, “we make them undergo extensive background searches that take months.” From polygraph tests to character references from as far back as middle school, Lemons said resisting peer pressure and making wise decisions early can have big pay-offs later in life--especially for those interested in forensic science.
