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Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962) is widely regarded as the mother of forensic science. In the early 1930s she used a large inheritance to professionalize the field, then known as legal medicine, by establishing the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard Medical School. As part of the training, she handcrafted 18 death scenes, scaled one inch to the foot, which depicted scenes of death by murder, suicide, accidents, and natural causes. Students would study the meticulously created Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death to hone their skills at observation. Lee became so well respected in the field, that she was appointed the first female state police captain in the United States, in 1943. Her models continue to be used in the training seminars which are now named in her honor. This presentation will provide an overview of her life, with a focus on the impact she had on the field of forensic science. William Tyre has served as Executive Director and Curator of the Glessner House in Chicago since October 2007. Bill holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2008, he published Chicago’s Historic Prairie Avenue, part of the Images of America series published by Arcadia. In his role as director of Glessner House, he oversees the daily operations of the museum including collections management, fundraising, programming, tours, interpretation, and restoration projects. Bill most enjoys research and writing and has spent several years sorting nearly three dozen banker’s boxes of Frances Glessner Lee’s personal and business papers. He has spoken about Lee’s life and career at several venues including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. during the opening weekend for their exhibit of Lee’s Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death in October 2017.