| David Robinson Ashbaugh | |
| Birth Date: | 11 March 1946 |
| Nationality: | Canadian |
| Field: | Fingerprint Forensic scientist |
| Work Institution: | Royal Canadian Mounted Police |
| Known For: | First use of the term ridgeology in forensic identification, introduction of the ACE-V methodology in the field |
| Prizes: | John A. Dondero Memorial Award, Edward Foster Award |
David R. Ashbaugh is a Canadian police officer known for his extensive research on the friction ridge identification, introducing for the first time the use of the term ridgeology in forensic identification and the ACE-V methodology. David Ashbaugh also wrote and published a fundamental and essential reference book for the entire forensic identification community : Quantitative-Qualitative Friction Ridge Analysis: An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Ridgeology.[1]
David Ashbaugh was born on 11 March 1946. He worked for more than thirty years at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police before retiring in 2004. During his career, he served more than twenty years as a certified forensic identification specialist. During his career, he contribute numerous articles to the field magazines and journals and made a lot of training around the world.[1]
David Ashbaugh made extensive research on the science of fingerprint identification. In the 80’s, he introduced in the field the ACE-V methodology for fingerprint identification, where ACE-V stand for Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation, and Verification.[2] In 1983, Ashbaugh published the first article using the term ridgeology in forensic identification,[3] creating also the terms level 1, level 2, and level 3 detail now in use in the identification community.[4] In 1999, he authored a book treating of ridgeology methods, poroscopy, edgeoscopy, pressure distortion, and more.[2]