Centre for Forensic Science

Anatomy & Human Biology

Dr Jan Meyer, from the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, teaches in Biological Anthropology. Her main research interests are studying the biomorphometrics of human shape as part of the National Sizing Survey and in relation to stress, health and menopause.

Centre For Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM)

Professor Brendan Griffin is Director of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis and has a teaching and research commitment to developments and applications of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray microanalysis. He is a leading authority on environmental SEM and has developed a new imaging procedure called charge contrast imaging or CCI.

Chemistry

Associate Professor Emilio Ghisalberti is interested in the isolation, structure determination and the role of bioactive metabolites from plants and fungal organisms. Aspects of his research have included the forensic chemistry of drug synthesis and the identification of plant-derived pharmaceutical compounds.
Professor Allan McKinley's research interests involve the applications of spectroscopy for the detection and characterization of reactive intermediates, theoretical modelling of the bonding in radicals and biological applications of Electron Spin Resonance spectroscopy.
Mr Neil Campbell is the head of the Forensic Chemistry Section at the Chemistry Centre of WA.

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Professor Robyn Owens is primarily involved in research in the area of computer vision, specifically related to feature detection, image representation, and biological shape measurement.
Dr Farid Flitti is a Research Associate in the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering. His main areas of research are in pattern recognition and image enhancement.
Associate Professor Chris McDonald is based at the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, with strong research and teaching experience in computer networking, computer operating systems, and security.

Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences

Winthrop Professor George Stewart is the Dean of the Faculty of Life & Physical Sciences. Professor Stewart has extensive experience in providing forensic evidence concerning the origin of drugs using stable isotope analysis.

School of Earth and Geographical Science.

Associate Professor Mark Tibbett is Director of the Centre for Land Rehabilitation at the University of Western Australia. His main interest is in decomposition processes and nutrient fluxes associated with materials in soil. He has wide experience different ecosystems, having worked in tropical, Mediterranean, temperate and polar regions.

Ministry of Justice and Department of Public Prosecutions

Ministry Of Justice

The Centre has the support and help from a number of Judges both retired and currently serving.

Department Of Public Prosecutions

The Centre appreciates the support of the State Director of Public Prosecutions for the mid year Mock Courts through the provision of prosecutors. The Centre also appreciates the contribution in time and skill of the legal community, including Legal Aid and private lawyers and members of the judiciary both current and retired to mid year and year end Mock Trials.

PathWest, WA

Dr Gerard Cadden is a Forensic Pathologist attached to the Department of Forensic Pathology at the PathCentre. He is a Fellow of Australian College of Legal Medicine and has a particular interest in Mass Disaster Management.
Dr Gavin Turbett is the Scientist in Charge, Forensic Biology Laboratory, PathCentre and a registered Forensic Practitioner.

Psychology

Winthrop Professor Mike Anderson is the Head of School. His research is concerned with the relationship between cognitive development, general intelligence and specific abilities. Professor Anderson has ongoing research into savant syndrome, new measures of speed of processing, the modularity of cognitive functions and the effects of ageing on cognition. More recently, he has begun collaborative research on the development of empathy and the basis of moral reasoning in children and how this may or may not be influenced by general intelligence.
Dr Allison Fox is a senior lecturer. Her reseach interests include examination of the long term effects of brain damage on cognitive functioning using behavioural and psychophysiological measures, such as the event-related potential (ERP). A number of projects are currenlty underway in the Clinical Neuropsychology Laboratory examining neuropsychological impairments of executive functions in various clinical groups.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky's main area of research has been in human memory and cognition. He specializes in connectionist models and their application to various memory phenomena, with the goal of unifying a large empirical database under a common theoretical umbrella. In pursuit of this goal, the models are first fit to existing results, and novel predictions of the models are then explored experimentally.
Assistant Professor Vance Locke mainly performs research in the area of stereotypes and the way they influence social judgements. One area of specialisation has focused on the role of prejudice in determining which stereotype is used (e.g., a gender or race stereotype) when judging people who belong to more that one social category. In other research he has examined the role positive and negative stereotypes play in court judgements.

West Australian Police Service

Police Science workshops are conducted each semester covering a diverse range of topics including: Forensic Document Examination, Ballistics, Fingerprinting, Intelligence Policing Methods, Psychological Profiling and Scene of Crime operations. These are conducted in association with the West Australian Police Force.