Driving Forensic Innovation in the 21st Century

The chicken and the egg: research and innovation within forensic science.- A review of forensic operating models and their relationship to doctrine, service delivery and innovation.- Innovation through the liaison with academia and end users.- Forensic Science Innovation in the UK: Roadblocks and enablers.- On the Recognition and Mitigation of Bias in Forensic Science.- Three critical elements of start-up success.- Use of AI tools for forensic purposes: ethical and legal considerations from an EU perspective.- Forensic Biometrics: Challenges, Innovation and Opportunities.- Algorithmic Enforcement Tools: Governing Opacity with Due Process.- The Challenges of Introducing Massively Parallel Sequencing into the UK Forensic Market.- Regulatory Considerations for Translational Forensic Science.- Translational Forensic Science, a U.S. Perspective

Simona Francese is Professor of Forensic and Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), UK. She holds a 1st Class Honours degree in Chemistry obtained from the University of Salerno, Italy in 2000, and a PhD in Chemical Sciences awarded in 2004 by the same University. In her current role, she is Director of the Sheffield Multi-Modal Imaging Centre (SMIC) sitting across SHU's Health and Wellbeing and Research and Innovation Colleges and Head of the Centre for Mass Spectrometry Imaging (CMSI) within the SHU's Biomedical Sciences Research Centre.

She is an expert in the development of MALDI MS Imaging applications and has pioneered its development for the analysis of latent fingermarks and blood to profile offenders. More recently she has engaged in research at the interface between forensics and clinical diagnostics using blood and sweat in fingertip smears to detect cancer and other pathologies.Her research has been implemented in police casework in UK and Europe and has been partly funded by the Home Office, West Yorkshire Police and The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, UK and she is now collaborating with the UK National Health System. She engages in public dissemination at all levels and one exemplary endeavour was the delivery of a TED talk in Vancouver in 2018 on molecular fingerprinting.



 

Dr Roberto King is an innovator, technologist and subject-matter expert within forensic science. He was responsible for the product innovation and development portfolio at foster+freeman, UK, where he served as Vice President of Product, and previously as the company's Chief Technology Officer. Roberto gained a 1st Class Honours degree in Chemistry and Sports Science from Loughborough University in 2005 and completed his PhD in Chemistry four years later at the same institution. He is a versatile inorganic chemist with expertise in the application of chemistry within the forensic