Forensic science – saving lives and naming the dead

The university is one of the world’s leading centres for forensic sciences research and innovation.

Professor Dame Sue Black and colleagues are internationally renowned for their work, which has developed new techniques – including identifying perpetrators from images of their hands in photographs – and led to successful prosecution in a significant number of cases of child sexual abuse.

They also devised and implemented the world’s first training programme for police officers and professional experts in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), in response to major events such as the Asian tsunami, the London bombings and the Sharm-El-Sheikh bombings.

Another strand of work has made them international leaders in craniofacial identification and forensic facial reconstruction for the identification of the living and the dead, including recreating the faces of historical figures such as King Richard III, Robert Burns and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Last year, the Queen officially opened the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the university. Led by Professor Black and Professor Niamh Nic Daéid, it will allow the development of more worldleading forensic techniques, such as innovative fingerprinting and a new generation of life-saving smoke alarms.

Every time you look at your smartphone you are seeing something made possible by work done at Dundee in the 1970s and 80s

Above: forensic expert Professor Dame Sue Black. Left: keyhole surgery pioneer Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri in his operating theatre at Ninewells Hospital.