One of the world’s leading forensic scientists – who takes up post at Lancaster University this summer – has published a new book on the universal experience of death.
All that Remains, A Life in Death by Professor Sue Black has already received high-profile attention including BBC Breakfast, The Sunday Times, The Times and The New Statesman.
Professor Dame Sue Black, who takes up a new post of Pro Vice-Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University in August, currently confronts death every day in her professional life.
As Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster.
In ‘All that Remains’ she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and what her work has taught her.
She said: “This book is not a traditional treatise on death. It is, like forensic anthropology itself, which seeks to reconstruct through death the story of the life lived, as much about life as about death – those inseparable parts of the continuous whole.”
Professor Dame Sue Black is one of the world’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists. Her expertise has been crucial to many high-profile criminal cases, and in 1999 she was the lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team’s work in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo. She was one of the first forensic scientists to travel to Thailand following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 to provide assistance in identifying the dead.
Sue is a familiar face in the media where documentaries have been filmed about her work and she led the highly successful BBC 2 series - History Cold Case. In 2015 she was interviewed on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs - and has also been a guest on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific . Most recently she stunned over 300,000 Outlander followers where she announced that Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser, was not residing in a coffin built for him at the Wardlaw Mausoleum.
She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to forensic anthropology.
She takes up her post at Lancaster on 1 August 2018.
- All that Remains, A Life in Death by Professor Sue Black is Published by Doubleday on 19th April 2018 at £16.99