News

Queensland Branch News – A look at 2022

06/03/2023 | General

As Queensland eased itself out of lockdowns and the continued ramifications of Covid, the branch was fortunate to restart our face-to-face presentations and social events in late 2021 and into 2022. This afforded the opportunity to highlight the range of exceptional and experienced forensic practioners in Queensland. Presentations and events have been well attended, with online participation processes encouraged to facilitate engagement between members and the forensic community. We endeavour to continue online options for presentations as we certainly appreciate that attending face-to-face meetings can be problematic for some members.

Our presentations and social events in 2022 briefly included:

  1. 21st June 2022: International Committee of the Red Cross, an Anthropology Account from Kristy Winter, Forensic Anthropologist, Forensic Unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Switzerland.
  2. 21st July 2022: AFTER, case studies and the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) process from Snr Sgt Ritchie Callaghan, State DVI Coordinator, Qld Police Service.
  3. 18th August 2022: Shipping Container Explosion by Sgt Darren Smith, Bomb Scene Examination manager for Qld Police Service.
  4. 17th November 2022: ANZFSS 2022 Symposium Award winner’s presentations. Congratulations again to our student award recipients – Georgia Teese and Eden Whittaker (both Griffith University) and our general award winners – Jasmine Connell (QUT), Dr. Peter Culshaw (QHFSS), Brendan Miller (QHFSS), A/Professor Sarah Cresswell (Griffith University), and Dr. William Gee (Griffith University).
  5. 9th December 2022: Qld Branch ANZFSS Christmas Party held at Victoria Park Bistro. A fantastic night of dinner, drinks and catching up with old friends after a full 2022.

Highlights

A highlight of 2022 included the long-awaited arrival of the ANZFSS International Symposium, held at the Hilton Brisbane from 11th to 15th September. From the welcome drinks to the range of presentations and posters, culminating in the social 80s themed night at the Brisbane Museum and the Gala dinner at City Hall, it was a triumph and our congratulations to the organising team for putting together a great meeting in such uncertain times. It was fantastic to see so many attendees, meet new friends, and see old colleagues who we haven’t seen since 2018! A reminder that the IAFS/ANZFSS Symposium is being held in November at the International Convention Centre, Sydney. Early bird registrations are open until 21 June 2023, and we encourage our Qld members to attend to showcase the amazing work that you do. The branch will be offering symposium awards so please watch this space and we hope to support as many of you as possible to attend.

As always, we encourage joining the branch whether you are a student, practioner, or have a bone fide interest in forensic science. We particularly like to encourage student membership, support your early career and to facilitate networking with forensic practioners in your desired specialities.

The Queensland branch could not function without the immense support, time, and effort of the volunteers of committee members and their input is paramount to the continued success of the branch. We are busy putting together our academic presentation and social event calendar for 2023 so please stay tuned and if we can be of any assistance in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact us at anzfssqldbranch@gmail.com or follow us on social media:

Instagram:  @anzfssqldbranch Facebook: @anzfssqldbranch Twitter: @ANZFSSQLDBranch.

Our first presentation of 2023 is DR. Dan Bonsu 14th March 2023, 5.45pm QHFSS Conference Theatre. The title of his presentation is From Crime Scenes to Clean Spaces: Investigating Trace DNA Analysis and Self-Cleaning Substrates.

Please book at https://members.anzfss.org/booking.php?id=5