WELLS — In May, an expert in communications and terrorism spoke about his work to a large group of Wells High School sophomores and others in the Olenn Auditorium.

During his lecture, Dr. Mark D. Frank, a professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Buffalo, focused on lying.   He showed video clips to demonstrate how a trained interviewer can detect when someone is lying through careful observation of subtle “micro” facial expressions and body language.

But this is just one aspect of Dr. Frank’s research and teaching career.  He has a long list of accomplishments including training over 1,000 law enforcement agencies and being a founding member of the FBI’s Terrorism Research and Analysis Project.   His research has been funded by The National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Several of the video clips shown were research videos featuring college students either truthfully answering questions or putting on an act to conceal lying in their answers.  Following the clips Dr. Frank would ask the audience for a show of hands as to who they thought was lying.

Sometimes deception in someone is not so easy to spot without the aid of technology.  One clip shown required Dr. Frank to freeze frame a segment of a video to reveal something startling that the casual viewer would miss.

At one point in a video deposition for a civil case that involved him, OJ Simpson is shown a photograph of himself wearing a pair of Bruno Magli shoes.

Buried in that split-second of deposition footage is a remarkable image of a wide-eyed and seemingly horrified Simpson as he discovers that he is waring that brand of shoes in the photo, shoes he indicated once that he would never wear, and a brand of shoes worn by the murderer in the 1994 murder of his wife and friend, a crime Simpson was acquitted of earlier in a criminal trial in Los Angeles.

“It’s always important, I think, for students to understand how science ultimately gets deployed,” said Dr. Frank after his presentation.  He believes students need to understand how seemingly insignificant experiments such as researching facial expressions can ultimately lead to something major including apprehending terrorists.   He hopes presentations like this will help bring science to life for students so that they can make informed decisions when, as voting citizens, they are presented with choices about funding scientific research.

This presentation was planned by WHS social studies teacher Kevin O’Shaughnessy who commented later that student responses to the lecture were “very positive.”  “Dr. Frank is a real life example of an expert that explains and trains law enforcement in techniques that help catch (terrorists) or prevent terrorist acts,” commented O’Shaughnessy who is a long-time friend of Dr. Frank.   O’Shaughnessy has hosted previous lectures by Dr. Frank in his AP Psychology class.

This lecture was held primarily for sophomores in World After 1945 classes taught by O’Shaughnessy and colleague Kristen Thompson.  That course includes a study unit on terrorism.

“Students were genuinely interested in Dr. Frank’s information on profiling,” commented social studies teacher Kristen Thompson. “They related to his sense of humor and were an involved audience. They particularly liked learning about the facial characteristics that indicate lying!”

“It’s always important, I think, for students to understand how science ultimately gets deployed,” said Dr. Frank who was offered the position of Chief Science Officer for the TSA, trained personnel at over 1,000 law enforcement agencies and in 2005, received the Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award.  “They will read about chemistry experiments and so on and so forth and to be able to expose them to how this is going to actually be operationally deployed out in the world and to try to make their world better and safer and that other kind of stuff. And so it is always fun to be able to do that and explain to them, because ultimately they’re going to be the consumers of this, they’re going to ultimately be the citizens who are going vote, should we fund science, should we do these sorts of things and so I think it helps for them to fully understand, this is where it pays off for you in some ways.

It may not be immediately apparent to you when you see an experiment where somebody is studying facial expressions and who cares.  Wells If you find out later that actually helps in terms of dealing with psychiatric patients, helping treatment, helping catch terrorists, helping to do that  other kinds of stuff  then hopefully it becomes alive to them so they can make informed judgements when they are voting citizens,” he said.