Wilson - 17 November 2010

Borders and boundaries are important, and sometimes essential, for giving order and structure to our lives and academic disciplines. They are also highly artificial, hard to define, frequently transient and can frustrate ability to optimise the potential benefits of science and technology directly or within political decision making.

In his inaugural lecture Professor Wilson will consider four questions relating to bioinformation and forensic pathology that illustrate different aspects of the significance of boundaries for the forensic sciences:

• Can cross-jurisdictional comparisons help us better to address utility and ethical issues arising from the greater use of science in the criminal justice system?
• Have recent attempts to improve the governance of forensic DNA databases demonstrated aspects of systemic weakness in political decision making relating to the criminal justice system?
• Are academic and professional boundaries within science, medicine and public health, rarely reported factors that have contributed to the failure post-Shipman to improve the quality of the scientific and medical contribution to  death investigation ?
• Might forensic science help to delineate and substantiate aspects of transnational crime?

In addressing these issues he will illustrate some aspects of work of the recently established Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science and, as a former Senior Civil Servant, reflect on the importance of academic contributions to political decision making about scientific and medical issues.

Tim Wilson is Professor of Forensic Sciences and Public Policy at Northumbria University.  His research interests are the use of forensic and clinical sciences in the criminal justice system and the resulting interfaces with ethics, public health, economics and politics.  He is a Visiting Fellow at PEALS (Policy Ethics and Life Sciences research centre) at Newcastle University and a member of the Forensic Science Society. He has lectured at conferences and academic institutions throughout the world for almost twenty years.  Tim currently lectures in the School of Life Sciences MSc Forensic Science programme.

The lecture will be held at Northumbria University in lecture theatre 002 in the Newcastle Business School/School of Law building on City Campus East, and will be followed by light refreshments. If you would like to attend, please e-mail Colleen Carr at colleen.carr@northumbria.ac.uk by Friday 12th November 2010.