Senior Failure Analysis Expert Dwayne Toscano is relocating to Laguna Hills in July 2025, as Lead of our Failure Analysis group in California.
Dwayne’s arrival in California establishes a local Failure Analysis practice group, expanding our California office’s services to include investigations into failures of consumer products, plumbing systems, industrial machinery, medical devices and transportation systems.
Dwayne is known among peers and clients for leveraging his mechanical and materials engineering background to get to the bottom of complex cases. He relies on over a decade of forensic engineering experience to investigate incidents ranging from large plumbing system failures in residential and commercial buildings—such as pipe bursts, fire sprinkler malfunctions, and HVAC equipment failures—to pocket-sized lithium-ion battery explosions. Alongside fellow expert Mark Bailey, he conducted research into the factors leading to motor vehicle wheel separations. Their work was recently published in the National Academy of Forensic Engineers (NAFE) Journal, and an abstract is available here: Forensic Investigations of Low-Clamp-Force Type Wheel Separations.
“I’m excited to bring our considerable failure analysis expertise to California,” says Dwayne. “While remote investigations remain common, complex failure cases may require on-site inspections, laboratory testing, and close collaboration between multiple experts; these investigations will highly benefit from a local presence. I look forward to connecting with new and longstanding clients, and bringing the clarity and rigor they expect from MEA Forensic to their failure analysis cases.”
“Dwayne’s leadership in failure analysis and his dedication to providing science-based answers make him the perfect fit to lead this practice group in California,” adds Jonathan Lawrence, President of MEA Forensic.
MEA Forensic serves clients across Southern California, including Los Angeles, Irvine, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Long Beach, and surrounding communities. With Dwayne’s move, our California office now offers a broader range of forensic engineering services, including collision reconstruction, injury biomechanics, video analysis, and failure analysis.
To get to know Dwayne and learn more about the range of cases our failure analysis group handles across North America, register for our free 1-hour MCLE webinar, Failure Analysis Investigations, on July 30. Dwayne will be joined by MEA experts Chris Tranquada, Mark Bailey, and Dennis Turriff to discuss evidence collection, expert selection, and the advantage of a research-based approach to failure cases. Register here.
Welcome to California, Dwayne, and best wishes on this exciting new chapter.
About MEA Forensic
MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists is a multi-disciplinary forensic investigations firm. From their offices in Los Angeles, CA, Toronto, ON and Vancouver, BC, their experts investigate transportation crashes, injuries, product failures, and property losses for clients in the legal and insurance industries across North America. Having worked on over 50,000 cases and published 250 scientific studies over the last 40 years, MEA Forensic sets the standard for high-quality forensic engineering and science.