Dr Eleanor Graham
Dr Eleanor Graham is a Lecturer in Forensic Science in the Department of Chemical and Forensic Sciences, School of Life Science. She studied for her first degree in Biochemistry at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) before completing an MSc in Biomolecular Archaeology jointly run by UMIST and the University of Sheffield. She then moved to the University of Leicester to complete her PhD under the supervision of Professor Guy Rutty, where she stayed to work as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate between before taking up her position at Northumbria University.
Eleanor is a member of the Forensic Science Society, the International Society of Forensic Genetics and the British Association for Human Identification. In 2008, she got the ‘highly commended’ for ‘The University Biopsy Tool’ at the 2008 Da Vinci Health Technology awards.
Previous funded research
Principal Investigator for an East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) collaboration grant award of £24,000 with De Montfort University. This was awarded in June 2009 to create proof-of-concept date for a genetic system designed to identify Hypericum species in St John’s Wort tablets. This project ran from July 2009 – April 2010.
Principal Investigator for a Home Office grant award of £15,000 to undertake a literature review of the use of forensic science in the investigation of contaminated terrorist attacks. The project ran from March 2009 – January 2010.
Co-investigator for a Peel Medical Research grant award of £3000. This was awarded in December 2008 for the production of proof-of-concept data for a novel blood stain identification method. This project ran from January 2008 – January 2009.
Co-supervisor of an intercalated BSc project which has been awarded a Pathological Society award of £3750. This project ran from September 2008 – June 2009.
Principal Investigator for an East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) Innovation award of £16,000. This was awarded in March 2008 for design finalisation, market research and business plan production of a soft tissue collection I co-invented with colleagues at the University of Leicester. This project ran from 1st July – 31st March 2009.
In 2005 the East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, University of Leicester research team was awarded a grant of £150,000 by the UK Home Office to conduct a multi-disciplinary project covering many aspects of contaminated mass fatality identification. She was the lead investigator for the DNA research section which involved investigation of room temperature DNA preservation, DNA degradation and soft tissue collection techniques. This project ran from January 2006 – July 2006.
Publications
Research Papers
Swinfield, CE, Graham, EAM, Nuttall, D, Maguire, S, Kemp, A and Rutty, GN.The use of DNA stabilizing solution to enable room temperature storage and transportation of buccal and trace sample swabs. Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series 2 (2009) 183–184
Socratous, E, Graham, EAM and Rutty, GN. Forensic DNA profiling of Cervus elaphus species in the United Kingdom. Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series 2 (2009) 281–282
Robinson C, Eisma R, Morgan B, Jeffery A, Graham EAM, Black S, Rutty GN. (2008) Anthropological measurement of lower limb and foot bones using multi-detector computed tomography. Journal of Forensic Sciences: accepted for publication January 2008
Graham EAM, Rutty GN. (2008) Investigation into 'normal' background DNA on adult necks: Implications for DNA profiling of manual strangulation victims. Journal of Forensic Sciences Online first May 2008 due to be published in issue 53(5)
Maguire S, Ellaway B, Bowyer VL, Graham EAM, Rutty GN. (2008) Retrieval of DNA from the faces of children aged 0–5 years: A technical note. Journal of Forensic Nursing 4(1): 40-44
Graham EAM, Turk EE, Rutty GN (2008) Room temperature DNA preservation of soft tissue for rapid DNA extraction: an addition to the disaster victim identification investigators toolkit? Forensic Science International: Genetics 2(1): 29-34
For a full list of publications, please click here.
