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Recent News
Peter Unger Honored for Years of Service at
ILAC General Assembly
By Kelsey Roberts, Marketing & Business Development Manager
Peter Unger, A2LA President Emer- Peter has always focused on
itus, has served on the International the needs of the market and
Laboratory Accreditation Coopera- end-users and has stubborn-
tion (ILAC) Executive Committee ly brought their views into
since 2001. His most recent position the discussions.
as ILAC Chair has spanned from
2011 until the close of 2016. He has helped increase
At the 2016 ILAC General Assembly, ILAC’s visibility in the eyes
Vice Chair, Merih Malmqvist, gave
the following statement about Ung- of global organizations such
er’s contributions:
as WTO, OECD, World
“He has had major contributions to
ILAC and its members. In fact, he Bank, global standards
has contributed to the development
of ILAC and its members more than makers like ISO and IEC, From L to R: Annette Dever, ILAC Secretary,
anyone I know.
WADA, OIML, BIPM and Peter Unger, Merih Malmqvist, incoming ILAC Chair
many more. A2LA thanks Pete for his continued
service to the global accreditation
He has also actively promoted community and continually pushing
the ILAC MRA for regulators and us closer to our vision of “Accredita-
other users of conformity assessment tion accepted everywhere.” n
results.”
ISO/IEC 17025 Identified as an Approved Forensic Standard by the OSAC
By Karin Athanas, Government and Regulatory Affairs Manager
The Organization of Scientific Area is identified as being relevant and er states will also choose to require
Committees (OSAC), a forensic or- appropriate for a given forensic dis- compliance with this standard in lieu
ganization administered by National cipline or disciplines. The document of development of similar, but not
Institute of Standards and Technol- is recommended by a Subcommittee equal, quality assurance regulatory
ogy (NIST), has recently completed of the OSAC and must be reviewed requirements.
its review of the ISO/IEC 17025 stan- for technical merit, appropriateness,
dard and approved it for addition to application in the area of forensics, A2LA has been active in the foren-
the OSAC Registry of Approved Stan- and a number of additional technical sic community for many years, in-
dards. areas. OSAC allows for an open com- cluding participation on the OSAC
ment period to ensure the engage- as well as many of the standard de-
Addition to the Registry confirms that ment of the forensic science commu- velopment bodies. A2LA accredita-
ISO/IEC 17025 has been “assessed nity. All comments are adjudicated tion options in the forensic field are
to be valid by forensic practitioners, and the adjudications are published available for current and new cus-
academic researchers, measurement on the OSAC website. tomers. If you would like to learn
scientists, and statisticians through a more, please contact: Brittney Bryant
consensus development process that The addition of ISO/IEC 17025 to the (bbryant@A2LA.org; 240 575 6407) or
allows participation and comment OSAC registry is a testament to its Randy Querry (rquerry@A2LA.org;
from all relevant stakeholders”1 and universality and ability to be broadly 301 644 3221).
appropriate for use by Forensic Sci- applied to numerous technical areas. [1] https://www.nist.gov/topics/fo-
ence Service Providers. States, such as North Carolina, cur- rensic-science/osac-registries n
rently require that those performing
OSAC review and approval begins forensic testing be accredited to ISO/ 3
when a document goes through a IEC 17025 and it is hoped that oth-
standards development process and
