Doug Elrick has a BA in Chemistry/Biology from Northwestern College, Orange City, an MS in Digital Forensics from the University of Central Florida, and a PhD in Education from Iowa State University. He has taught at DMACC since 2011.

Other than a brief stint as a biochemist in medical research at Mayo Clinic, Elrick has spent 30+ years as a forensic scientist, 28 years in digital forensics.

During his 13 years at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Crime Lab, a case came to the lab where a 9-year-old girl had been abducted in a small eastern Iowa town. She escaped and took police back to the scene in a park. The only piece of physical evidence was a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk, which was folded up and covered in mud.

“Because I had some computer experience (this was 1992), I was assigned the case,” he said. “From this case and the foresight of the DCI leadership, I started the computer crimes unit for the State of Iowa.”

Elrick also worked for the private company, Digital Intelligence, conducting civil investigations and training in over 20 countries around the world. “One SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigation took me to 13 different countries, including Russia, China, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, and Argentina, in less than 100 day,” he said. He has also provided law enforcement forensic training in Australia, Croatia, Germany, and, most recently, in Spain and testified as an expert witness in federal, state, and local court venues.

Elrick wrote the textbook, Forensic Examination of Windows Supported File Systems (2014), and authored/co-authored articles appearing in Journal of Online Learning Research and Journal of Forensic Sciences. His most recent piece, co-authored with others, is “Examining the Characteristics of Game-based Learning: A Content Analysis and Design framework,” which appeared in Computers & Education in early 2020.

At DMACC, Elrick shares his knowledge and experiences with students. “DMACC IT and Cybersecurity instructors have the actual experience in the fields being taught. This experience provides so much more for the students to learn from,” he said.

“DMACC provides access to the same forensic tools and processes that are utilized in law enforcement and private examiners. This is unique from many other colleges and universities, which only uses free tools to teach concepts instead of teaching concepts and how to use the tools that employers are looking for. This is a definite advantage.”

Contact Doug Elrick at dgelrick@dmacc.edu or (515) 964-6598

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