Profile -
Professor Sue Black

The Unit of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology is one of the most experienced centres in the UK for human identification, forensic anthropology and the study of the human body.

Led by Professor Sue Black, OBE, the award-winning centre is frequently involved in high profile identification cases both at home and abroad and offers the UK's first ever degree course in forensic anthropology.

The research within the Unit is multidisciplinary, covering a wide variety of subjects including the detailed gross, microscopic and biomolecular analysis of adult and juvenile skeletal remains to establish all aspects of biological and personal identity including the sex, age at death, and disease and trauma status of the individual.

From work in the Balkans to training officers back home, Professor Black has made and continues to make an impact in the field of forensic anthropology. Here, she tells Contact of her greatest achievements and research plans for the future.

Name:
Sue Black OBE BSc PhD DSc FRSE

Job Title:
Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology

University department/division:
Head of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, College of Life Sciences

Academic background:
My undergraduate and PhD degrees were in Human Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen. I took up my first lecturing job in Anatomy at St.Thomas' Hospital in London before becoming a consultant in Forensic anthropology to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Sum up area of research in 50 words or less:
All my research is designed to aid in the identification of the human, or what remains of the human, whether that is as a result of homicide, suicide or mass disaster.

Greatest achievement/breakthrough in research:
My greatest achievement was unquestionably being able to work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the international mission to recover evidence for the indictments against Milosevic and others following the Balkan wars. My personal moment of greatest achievement was being able to separate the commingled remains of 11 members from one family to allow their individual funerals to be undertaken. The youngest child in the family was 6 months and the oldest were twin boys of 14 years when they all died following an RPG attack on their tractor and trailer. Nothing can ever come close to the sense of achievement at being able to give a man, who had lost everything, the only thing that he wanted - dignity in death for each member of his family. It was the most humbling experience.

Goals for the future:
We have just secured the UK DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) police training contract and I am really excited at being allowed to be a part of training our national team so that they can carry out the most difficult of tasks whilst fully prepared for the horrors that may lie before them. If we can do that for UK police then I want to be able to expand that training to teams from other countries. So many mass disasters involve international collaboration and co-operation and to have a small part in a process that might finally realise some element of uniformity is tremendously exciting.

What other University department/division would you like to collaborate with?
I already collaborate with Rami Abboud in Orthopaedics, Graeme Houston in Clinical Radiology, John Drummond in the Dental School, Brigid Daniel in Child Health and Chris Rowland in Duncan of Jordanstone. I would really like to see a stronger relationship develop with Forensic Medicine and Toxicology.

Do you have any ideas for collaborative projects that you'd like to be involved in?
We always have ideas but finding the time to pursue them can be difficult. The interesting thing about human identification is that we can probably find collaboration with almost any department in the University from Nick Fyfe in Geography to Marion Wynne-Davis in English via Ian Ricketts in Applied Computing.

If you could choose one thing that would positively impact your research/work environment/job satisfaction, what would it be?
Persuading Government departments to seriously address 'joined up' approaches. It is so time consuming and frustrating when you have to work with 6 different departments, all pulling in different directions, to try and achieve one common goal. Cohesion is lacking and as a result it becomes such an almost impossible mountain to climb that innovation is stifled and the impetus to change and develop may never get kick started.

If you weren't in this job what would you be doing?
Writing. I like the solitary nature of this occupation and am currently trying to finish a biography and novel on a nineteenth century military explorer - if only there was more time!