Confirmed Plenary Speakers to Date

Dr Rebecca Bucht is the Head of CSI services at the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation. Prior to returning to her native Finland in 2017, she worked as a consultant for the US DOJ International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Training Program (ICITAP) as a senior forensic advisor for the program in Algeria and with smaller roles in the Philippines, Tanzania, Brazil and Tunisia. Rebecca received her PhD in Criminal Justice with a specialization in Forensic Science from the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York in 2010. She did her dissertation research at John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she also taught as an adjunct professor for the Forensic Science department.

Her interests include strategies for improving the contribution of forensic science to the criminal justice system, advocating for the benefits of a holistic approach to forensic science as well as operational solutions for mitigating the effects of cognitive biases in forensic examination procedures. Her past research has focused on the use of polarized light to visualize and document blood stains on dark surfaces, the use of multivariate statistics and quantitative x-ray diffraction data for forensic examination of duct tapes, as well as cognitive profiling of fingerprint examiners.

Caroline Gibb is a forensic researcher at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), and PhD student at the Leverhulme Research Centre of Forensic Sciences, University of Dundee. Prior to her relocation to the Northern hemisphere, Caroline obtained her certificate of fingerprint expertise in Australia and spent 13 years as a Forensic Officer with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department. Her core duties included crime scene attendance, laboratory processing, mortuary attendance, fingermark comparison, and preparing reports and offering expert witness testimony. Caroline is the 2014 Allan Hodda Memorial Award recipient, has attended and presented at numerous international conferences, twice as a keynote speaker. She is passionate about the training and education, and ongoing development of fingerprint subject matter expertise. In particular the articulation of expert reasoning using computer assisted platforms. She is an advocate for strengthening the science through beyond border collaboration and institutional connectivity, and sees value in the movement toward a logical framework.

Commissioner Karen Webb joined NSW Police Force in May 1987 and has performed general duties and criminal investigations both in the metropolitan area of Sydney and Regional NSW. She has performed duties at the Child Mistreatment Unit, Drug Enforcement Agency, Detectives Training Unit and command roles at Forensic  Services Group, Local Area Commands, Operations Manager, North West Metropolitan Region  Commander, State Surveillance Branch and Assistant Commissioner Police Transport & Public Safety Command and Traffic and Highway Patrol Command.

Dr. Michelle D. Miranda is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Security Systems and Law Enforcement Technology at Farmingdale State College, State University of New York. She has a Ph.D. in criminal justice, forensic science concentration, from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, an M.S. in forensic science, an M.Phil. in criminal justice, and a B.S. in biology.  Dr. Miranda is a diplomate with the American Board of Criminalistics and a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. She worked as a criminalist in the Trace Evidence Section of the New York City Police Department Crime Lab, and as both a medical photographer and a death investigator for regional Medical Examiner’s Offices in New York. Her background and research cover forensic science and criminalistics, detection and investigation, analytical reasoning, transnational security and sexual violence. Dr. Miranda is the author of the book Forensic Analysis of Tattoos and Tattoo Inks.

Olivier Delémont is Professor in Forensic Science at the Ecole des Sciences Criminelles (School of Criminal Justice) of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). After completing a PhD in forensic science, he pursued a parallel academic and police career for almost 10 years, dividing his time between research and teaching activities at the University of Lausanne, and a forensic scientist position at the Geneva police. Since his appointment as a professor in 2005, he has conducted research in relation to several areas of forensic activities, and in particular crime scene investigation, fire investigation, fire debris analysis, chemical criminalistics, wastewater analysis and forensic intelligence. His research activities and interests cover a wide range of areas, as evidenced by the scope of the peer-reviewed scientific publications, book chapters and books of which he is the author. He defines himself as a generalist, with the overarching vision of considering forensic science as a discipline on its own.

Anuruddhi Samanthika Edirisinghe is the Carder Chair Professor of Forensic Medicine, in the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. She graduated from the North Colombo Medical College in 1995 and commenced her carrier in Forensic Medicine in 2000.  She completed her specialist training in 2006 with DLM(2001), MD(For Med)(2003), DMJ(Lond)(2005). She obtained MFFLM(UK) in 2012 based on published work. She has been working as a specialist in Forensic Medicine to the North Colombo Teaching Hospital Ragama, Sri Lanka from 2006. She was promoted as a merit professor in Forensic Medicine in 2014 and became the Carder Chair Professor of Forensic Medicine from 2017. Professor Edirisinghe is the first female to hold a forensic carder chair post in a National University in Sri Lanka. She has journal publications over 30, 2 book chapters and over 150 presentations in local/international scientific conferences. Her research interests include child abuse, sexual and gender based violence, homicides, drunken drivers, unnatural female deaths etc.

Denise is a highly respected scientist, academic, statistician, editor and author of medical and forensic text books, with over twenty years’ experience in laboratory research, evidential examination and is a court-going accredited expert witness, giving evidence in court on many occasions over the last fifteen years.  Her appointment as a Professor in Forensic Genetics at King’s College London has allowed her to teach forensic genetics to undergraduate and post-graduate students and supervise those undertaking research for their doctorates. Her expertise relates to human DNA analysis for identification, both analysis and interpretation and specialises in the use of molecular biology techniques involving sequencing and fragment analysis in the analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, particularly those presented in complex matrices, methylated DNA and RNA in all body fluids, phenotypic and ancestral inference.  She leads an ISO17025 Ministry of Justice accredited laboratory as part of King’s Forensics human relationships.  She is a blood pattern expert and statistician and has held consultant positions in medical and forensic science and medical statistics with various organisations.  She is a member of several professional associations (Biochemical Society, British Academy of Forensic Sciences, Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences, Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Academy of Forensic Medical Sciences, Institute of Biological and Medical Sciences, International Society of Forensic Genetics, Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Statistical Society), represents the UK on the European DNA profiling group, is the International Society of Forensic Genetics representative to the UK Forensic Regulator’s DNA Working Group.   Her research group has been the UK partner, with other European Forensic Institutes, undertaking research in the forensic arena: STADNAP, SNPforID and EuroforGen, presenting her research and attending relevant International meetings.   As a member of the European Forensic Genetics Network of Excellence she was joint leader of the ethics and law work package and is a member of the Home Office Biometrics and Forensic Ethics Group.  She has an active interest in promoting and ethical view of science, and especially the use of DNA in justice to a wider audience via television, radio and external lectures.

Prof Didier Meuwly graduated as a criminalist and criminologist (1993) and received his PhD (2000), both at the School of Forensic Science (Ecole de Sciences Criminelles) of the University of Lausanne. He currently shares his time between The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, where he is the principal scientist, and the University of Twente, where he holds the chair of Forensic Biometrics. He specialises in the automation and validation of the probabilistic evaluation of forensic evidence, and more specifically from biometric traces.

From 2002 to 2004 Didier worked as a senior forensic scientist at the Forensic Science Service (UK-FSS). Didier serves as an associate editor for Forensic Science International (FSI) and is a member of the R&D standing committee of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI-RDSC). He is also the lead editor of an ISO forensic standard science (21043-3).