Hello!
I am currently self employed as a forensic art and human identification specialist,
and training provider. I am listed on the NPIA Specialist Operations Centre
database for forensic art services where my expertise includes post mortem
facial reconstructions and both child and adult age progressions. I am also
listed as a forensic consultant for the International Commission for the Red
Cross (ICRC) and as a team member for Blake Emergency Services Ltd mass disaster
deployments.
I regularly provide presentations and training to both police and academic
audiences, including the police Efit training course and various undergraduate
and postgraduate degree courses.
I have vast experience as a media spokesperson and expert advisor, having
provided artwork, interviews and advice for news and feature items as well
as numerous documentaries and appeal programmes. These include regular appearances
on BBC One's "Missing Live" series, Sky News and Living TV's "The
Changing Face of...", along with a variety of radio & print sources
such as the Guardian and Daily Mirror.
Having previously worked for the Missing People charity, and thus closely
with the Missing Persons’ Bureau of the National Policing Improvement
Agency (MPB NPIA), I spent many years working within the arena of missing
persons and have a wealth of experience in working with police, coroners,
hospitals and social services, including database cross matching of unidentified
and missing persons cases. I am a council member of the British Association
of Human Identification (BAHID) and contributed the chapter "Missing
Persons in the United Kingdom" to the book "Forensic Human Identification
– An Introduction", CRC Press, 2006.
My academic background is in human anatomy, osteology and forensic anthropology
where I specialised in forensic facial reconstruction and facial ageing. I
have received additional training from the FBI Academy and the National Centre
for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the USA, and the ACPO accredited
course in Facial Identification in the UK.
My other experience includes managing inter-organisational relationships and
both small and large volunteer teams, conference organisation, and being directly
involved in the development of databases and publicity materials such as website
content and marketing information.
I
graduated from UCL Institute of Archaeology with an MSc in Forensic Archaeological
Sciences. My dissertation was an investigation of human remains from the 18th
century Anatomical School in Craven Street. Since then I have carried out
osteoarchaeological analysis over the past 5 years for several projects, both
in Britain and in Europe. These include human remains from Compton Basset,
Avebury and Spitalfields, London. More recently I have been involved for two
seasons in an ongoing research project run by Dr. Simon Hillson at UCL with
the collaboration of the Museum of Astypalia in Greece. This involves the
excavation, detailed recording and analysis of neonate remains from large
amphora dating to 600BC. I was employed as an osteoarchaeologist for On-Site
Archaeology where I was responsible for the excavation, analysis and report
writing of all human remains and faunal material recovered by the unit in
York. I then went on to work as Research Osteologist at the Centre for Human
Bioarchaeology at the Museum of London, where I was involved in the analysing
and recording onto database the Museum's entire collection of human remains
for a project funded by the Wellcome Trust. The aim of this ground-breaking
project is to provide a standardised skeletal accession database, making the
osteological and contextual data readily available to future researchers.
In January 2008 I was awarded Wellcome Trust funding for a PhD based at UCL,
London where I am currently carrying out research on post-medieval remains,
deposited as the result of some of the earliest dissection practices for anatomical
research in London.
I
have worked in field archaeology professionally since 1996, when I graduated
from Bradford University with a BSc in Archaeological Sciences. Since then
I have been employed by a number of units throughout Britain and Ireland.
After obtaining an MSc with Distinction in Osteology, Palaeopathology and
Funerary Archaeology, I was employed as an osteologist, working on the excavation
of the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital. Here I was responsible for supervising
the processing and packing of 10,500 skeletons as well as database management,
giving talks to the public and school children as well as giving interviews
to the press. I have produced numerous reports, both archaeological (as a
supervisor for MoLAS) and osteological for several archaeological units and
museums. Work ranges from assessment to publication level on inhumation and
cremation burials of all periods. In addition, as a member of BAHID and a
registered forensic practitioner with CRFP, I have acted as a consultant forensic
archaeologist alongside both the City and Metropolitan Police Forces on a
number of forensic cases, ranging from single bone identification through
to full-site excavation and the production of anthropological data to assist
with victim identification. I have also assisted in 'writing off' potential
crime scenes where skeletal material was demonstrated to be archaeological
in nature. I have given a number of lectures to students at Birbeck, Royal
Holloway and London Metropolitan University and have run a day school at the
University of Essex Centre for Lifelong Learning. I am currently producing
assessments and reports for a number of units in the south of England through
the Museum of London Specialist Services. Recent and current projects include
a large, early Medieval cemetery assemblage from Co. Meath, Roman inhumations
and cremated bone assemblages from Spitalfields, numerous small City sites,
prehistoric cremated bone burials from Essex and Anglo-Saxon remains from
Kent. In 2004 I also was elected as the Museum representative on the BABAO
commitee.
I've
been working in field of osteoarchaeology for the past twelve years after
graduating from the University of Sheffield with an MSc in Osteology, Palaeopathology
and Funerary Archaeology. I worked as an Osteological Assistant and an Archaeologist
on the Spitalfields project in London, involving the excavation, processing,
cataloguing and assessment of over 10,000 skeletons. I have also worked for
English Heritage excavating Anglo-Saxon burials and also giving talks to school
groups about the excavation and analysis of human remains. Subsequently, I
worked at Worcestershire County Council Archaeology Services, giving on-site
osteological advice and carrying out post-excavation analysis and then went
on to become involved in the analysis of a large post-medieval urban skeletal
population form St. Martin's-in-the-Bullring at the University of Birmingham
(now published as an Oxbow Monograph). Since leaving Birmingham, I have worked
as a Research Osteoarchaeologist at the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology at
the Museum of London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, analysing human skeletal
remains from the Royal Mint site.
I have more recently been carrying out freelance osteoarchaeological analysis
for Mercian Archaeology, Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology
Services, Herefordshire Archaeology and Archaeological Project Services involving
both inhumated and cremated human remains from all archaeological periods.
I have also been involved in producing up-to-date field guides for field staff
working with human remains published on BAJR and carrying out research to
contribute towards forthcoming publications currently being produced by archaeological
field units. My latest projects include the analysis of a large and rare post-medieval
assemblage from the Worcester Royal Infirmary with evidence of amputation
and dissection, remains of over 50 individuals from an inhumation cemetery
of Roman date and approximately 100 inhumated and cremated skeletons that
are the focus of a British Academy funded research project led by Dr. Becky
Gowland at the University of Durham, on which I work as a research assistant.
Additionally, I am also currently involved in the re-analysis of remains from
a potential massacre context, excavated from the Iron Age hillfort site of
Bredon Hill, a project that was recently awarded funding by BABAO and the
Royal Archaeological Institute and is overseen by Derek Hurst, WHEAS.
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