July 13, 1958 – November 27, 2025
Help us honour Brent’s legacy while inspiring excellence in our community.
About the Award
The Brent Ostrum Award for Best Presentation or Poster recognises authors who deliver highly educational, engaging, and entertaining presentations. A panel of judges evaluates submissions based on audience engagement and relevance to current forensic trends. Winners receive a conference fee waiver for the next CSFS conference.
Our Purpose
This award remembers Brent Ostrum’s immense contributions to the CSFS Document Section, global document examination, and evaluative reporting education.
How You Can Help
Your financial support directly funds the winners’ conference fees, making continuing education accessible. Donations will be accepted until November 27, 2028. Donations are eligible for a tax receipt which will be emailed to you. Registered charity no. 106866932 RR 0001.
About Brent
With nearly 40 years of public service, Brent began his forensic document examination journey in 1985 at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, under the expert tutelage of Les Peace. He and his excellent cohort at the Forensic Services Laboratory in Regina, Saskatchewan were early adopters of digital technologies, largely because of Brent’s influence. Many considered him the go-to person on all matters Photoshop, digital imaging and editing, and computer science as it relates to questioned documents.
In the early 2000s he moved to the Canada Customs & Revenue Agency (later the Canada Border Services Agency) laboratory in Ottawa, Ontario, where he worked until very recently. There, both he and his research interests flourished, as the profession slowly caught up to his passions: examiner competency, evidence evaluation and examiner opinions. Brent studied psychology and statistics at university and put that knowledge to good use throughout his career. He completed the advanced Statistics and Evaluation of Forensic Evidence course at the Université de Lausanne, a course seemingly built for him. He then set out to actively change how forensic document examiners evaluate evidence and form their opinions.
Brent was very active in the CSFS over his entire career. As chair of the Document Examination Section for more than 15 years, he was deeply involved in publications, membership and the growth of the Section within the Society. He also gave his time to ASTM, SWGDOC, NIST/OSAC, the Expert Working Group on Human Factors in Handwriting Examination, and to countless colleagues worldwide. He presented numerous workshops on evidence evaluation, and his illness slowed him down only recently. He authored and co-authored many articles and book chapters, and his office was literally filled with research proposals in various states of completion.
Beyond all of this, Brent was a truly committed and wonderful colleague. He mentored everyone, regardless of experience. He could be counted on to play devil’s advocate on any matter that needed discussion, to make sure every facet had been considered. Peer review with him was fun and challenging, especially the full-lab collaborative tests. He was endearingly chatty. If you asked his opinion on anything, you had better be prepared to listen to a long, well-thought-out yet on-the-fly response, and to expect him to resurface later with extra information on the topic.
Selected Publication
Ostrum, R. B. (2019). CSFS Document Section position on the logical approach to evidence evaluation and corresponding wording of conclusions. Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal, 52(3), 129–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/00085030.2019.1635736
Contact
Questions about the award or other ways to give? Please contact csfs1959@outlook.com