Update from the Chair of the BAFA Committee

7th June 2023
A message from our Chair of the BAFA Steering Committee, Dr Julie Roberts: 

I have a few brief updates for you in advance of our summer Newsletter

1. I would like to thank all of you who attended our first live BAFA conference on the 29th April.  We were hosted by our BAFA Secretary, Rachael Carew, at Coventry University and it was a fabulous venue! The effort that you all made to engage with the workshop, and present talks and posters on your research was much appreciated. It was a really good day, and fun social in the evening- massive thanks to Conner for organising and facilitating the quiz! There will be more details of the talks and the prize winners to follow in the BAFA newsletter.

2. I would like to thank Emily Norton, Chris Rogers, Julietta Gómez Gacia-Donez, Micol Zuppello, and Amber Collings, for applying for the BAFA Committee positions of Commercial Officer and Academic and Research Liaison Officer. Thank you also to all those of you who voted- the results were very close indeed! For those of you who weren’t at the conference to hear the results, the successful candidates were Micol Zuppello, who is now our new Commercial Officer, and Amber Collings, who is now our Academic R&D Liaison Officer. I am delighted to welcome them both onto the committee and we all look forward to working with them in the future.

3. There are a few changes to report in the world of DVI including the return of our UK DVI Coordinator, Tracy Alexander, to the City of London Police. Our police UK DVI Commander Det Supt. Jon Marsden will be coordinating the forensic experts until a new appointment is made. Also of significance is the publication of the new 2023 Interpol DVI Guide which includes contributions from the Pathology and Anthropology Sub-Working Group. There is now a new post-mortem form for recording large volumes of burnt and fragmented remains, and updated guidance on recording and recovering remains from disaster scenes.

The July edition of ab FAB will contain further updates on DVI, including proceedings from the Interpol DVI meeting in Singapore, held at the end of May. There will also be a link to application forms for the new BAFA small grants in the newsletter, so make sure you don’t miss that!

Best wishes and thank you for your continued engagement,
Julie