Key Takeaways:

• Standardizing death investigations: The new course will help increase consistency in—and ultimately improve—investigations statewide.
• Expanding training, improving death reporting: The 30-hour course will supplement the current eight-hour training requirement, updating forensic skills and providing more accurate and timely data methods, including in overdose cases.
• Linking education with public health: More training could lead to more reliable death records, helping the state respond to the opioid crisis and other public health problems.

In many New York State jurisdictions, coroners investigate deaths, yet they need no formal training in medicolegal death investigation to serve. Medicolegal death investigation applies medical, scientific and legal methods to determine the cause of death. Many coroners—both new and experienced—could benefit from more consistent training to meet today’s forensic standards, especially for overdose death investigations.

Now, Maria Pettolina, professor of practice in Syracuse University’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute (Forensics Institute), is leading the development of the state’s first comprehensive 30-hour training program for coroners and other medicolegal death investigators.

Standardizing skills

“Our goal is to help coroners become more comfortable and proficient on the scene as they respond to both suspicious deaths and non-suspicious deaths,” says Pettolina. “Coroners are responsible for documenting scenes, recognizing evidence, communicating with law enforcement and physicians, ordering autopsies and making proper notifications after deaths.”

Coordinated through the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute, Office of Drug User Health, this first-of-its-kind program aims to standardize death investigation practices across the state. The initiative is funded through a state contract awarded to the Forensics Institute and supported by opioid settlement funds. Supplementing the state’s eight-hour training requirement, the course will help bring more consistency and accuracy to overdose reporting.

Pettolina is working closely with subject matter experts and an advisory board to develop a unified, comprehensive curriculum that blends forensic science, legal understanding and ethical responsibility.

“We are going to provide foundational knowledge, as well as build on the knowledge that these coroners already have,” says Pettolina. “Some coroners have been in their positions or rotating through positions for at least four years.”

Both online and in-person instruction in the Syracuse area will allow training accessibility for coroners across New York’s 62 counties. The state’s goal is to have 60 percent of all coroners complete the training within a two-year period (June 2025–May 2027).

Bringing opioid crisis into focus

The program seeks to address a major public health problem: uneven and incomplete death statistics. Death certificates are key to tracking overdose deaths and other health trends. But inconsistent records and testing across counties have led to underreporting of overdose deaths and delays that hide the true extent of the opioid crisis and other health issues. These inconsistencies can skew public health data, making it harder for policymakers and health officials to allocate prevention and treatment resources where they’re needed most.

Pettolina brings 18 years of professional experience in crime and death investigation to the project. She holds a master’s degree in forensic medicine and has worked as a crime scene investigator and death investigator in North Carolina and Colorado, processing hundreds of cases. A recognized subject matter expert and court-qualified witness in forensic investigation, Pettolina also serves on multiple boards and teaches forensic science courses at Syracuse University.

The Forensics Institute at Syracuse University has offered forensic science education since 2011, including a M.S. in Medicolegal Death Investigation and a Certificate of Advanced Study in the same field. The University also maintains a longstanding partnership with the Onondaga County Health Department’s Center for Forensic Sciences, which includes the county’s Medical Examiner’s Office.

This latest training builds on the Forensics Institute's leadership in advancing forensic DNA technology. The institute recently hosted the nation's first Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) training for forensics professionals from public crime labs across New York State. NGS allows researchers to obtain higher-resolution data by analyzing more genetic markers, even from low-quantity or degraded samples. These training programs stand as a model for how academic institutions can partner with government to advance both professional education and public health.