Credit: County of Santa Clara
A Stanford-trained Ph.D. chemist who helped modernize the Oakland Police Department’s forensics laboratory will take the helm this week of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Crime Lab.
Sandra Burnham Sachs takes over as the DA’s forensic chief from being the lab manager of the OPD’s Criminalistics Division.
Sachs will oversee the internationally accredited crime lab previously led by Ian Fitch since 2011. Dr. Fitch retired this year. The SCCDA Crime Lab, with 76 criminalists, is one of the few crime labs in the state managed by a DA’s office.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said that Dr. Sachs would continue a vital tradition of independently testing and identifying evidence in criminal cases, such as DNA, weapons, and “rape kits.”
“Sachs is first an experienced and excellent forensic scientist,” DA Rosen said. “Her leadership skills will serve the lab, the dedicated criminalists who work there, and our community to keep our criminal justice efficient, accurate, and – ultimately – fair.”
As manager of OPD’s forensic services, Sachs oversaw the day-to-day operations of the busy laboratory, managing the supervisors of the Drug Analysis, Firearms, Forensic Biology and Latent Print units, while maintaining operating budgets and grants, and directing the quality assurance program that optimizes all casework output. She led initiatives to modernize laboratory infrastructure, improve case turnaround times, and reduce backlogs without compromising quality. Sachs also launched a Crime Gun Intelligence Center. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Chief’s Leadership Award.
Sachs graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key National Honor Societies and a University Honors Program graduate with magna cum laude distinction. Sachs received her doctorate degree in chemistry from Stanford University.
The daughter of a federal government civil engineer, she was a kid who moved around military-style. She fell in love with chemistry when her sixth-grade teacher in Arizona showed the class the electrolysis of water. Later, a friend lent her a book: a Patricia Cornwall novel about forensic scientist Dr. Kay Scarpetta – a sharp-dressed, gourmet, perfectionist medical examiner who solved crimes. Intrigued, she attended a meeting of the International Academy of Forensic Sciences and Education and fell in love with forensic science.
Sachs was hired as a criminalist for the San Francisco Police Department in 2001. In 2005, she worked for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in San Francisco as an assistant forensic toxicologist.
Republished courtesy of County of Santa Clara