Jelena Myers

Jelena Myers is the Crime Laboratory Superintendent for the Tucson Police Department Crime Laboratory (TPDCL). 

She started her career in forensics in 1999 at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) in Auckland, New Zealand.  In 2003, Myers joined the TPDCL as a Senior DNA Criminalist, promoting to the DNA Technical Leader in 2008, a position she held for ten years, before becoming the Crime Laboratory Superintendent in 2018. 

As the Crime Laboratory Superintendent, Myers plans, directs, and oversees activities of the TPDCL, to include strategic planning and operation of eight forensic disciplines, forty employees and compliance with the laboratory accreditation by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). 

At the TPDCL, she is responsible for the management and administration of the state and federal grants and has brought on several major competitive grant funded initiatives to the City of Tucson, to include the District Attorney of New York grant for processing and DNA testing of untested sexual assault kits (2016) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance Forensic DNA Laboratory Efficiency Improvement and Capacity Enhancement grant for multi-disciplinary processing and DNA testing of backlogged property crimes (2019).

Myers has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Lenoir-Rhyne College and a Master’s degree in Forensic DNA and Serology from the University of Florida.