‘Forensic taphonomy provides researchers with a huge playing field’

Forensics science is a strong emerging field that offers tremendous scope for research and employment. City girl Rushali Dargan, has secured a full scholarship for a doctoral thesis on a topic that will cover body decomposition, training sniffer dogs to trace decomposed bodies among other things at a Canadian university. She’s currently doing research at an Australian university on forensic anthropometry and is headed to Canada next month.
Dargan talks to TOI about the field of forensics the potential it offers for students. Excerpts from an interview...

Q. What professional scope does the field of forensic offer students?

A. The field of forensic with its innumerable branch has tremendous scope for inspiring forensic experts. Since the field is closely related to legal enforcement and police services, both in India and overseas, forensics is dominated by the government sector with a few private companies. There is scope to work in the field and in the laboratory accessing the collected evidence samples. There is also possibility of undertaking research or becoming an academician.

Q. Apart from criminal investigations in which other fields can forensic help? How do skills from various fields feed into forensics?

A. Any skill that you gain as a chemist, biologist, physicist, psychologist, computer engineers, even as an accountant, can ultimately help you become a forensic expert. Since this science branches out in a big way there is scope for almost everyone. Accountants become forensic auditors and are employed by several banks and other firms. Fire experts handle arson and explosives cases. Software engineers handle cyber crime. Archaeologists handle recovery of human remains, physics experts study ballistics. Chemistry and biology students have no dearth of research topics and this list can go on. Basically, the knowledge and understanding of various subjects can later be used towards becoming a forensic expert in that field.

Q. What is the new niche field of forensic anthropometry?

A. Forensic anthropometry is an offshoot of anthropology. This is in fact the field in which I am doing research at an Australian university. In forensic anthropometry we are using facial measurements to establish an individual’s biological profile (sex, ancestry, stature, age). The application of this study would be in facial recognition, facial reconstruction, forensic intelligence and missing person cases. The data that we collect is a general population facial measurement trend that can also be used outside of forensic field such as by doctors in caraniomaxillofacial surgery and companies that manufacture head and face related equipments such as respirators etc.

Q. Another niche is forensic taphonomy, isn’t?

A. Forensic taphonomy is basically studying human body decomposition. This is the field in which I will be pursuing my doctoral thesis. It’s an exciting niche because it provides researchers with a huge playing field and innumerable possibilities. My research will include how we can improve methodologies to detect human remains and the learn the science behind it. I would be working towards finding improved ways to train dogs for searching and detecting human remains.

Q. How much demand is there for research in the field of forensics?

A. The demand and scope in field of research is unlimited, like in any other field, even forensic is constantly evolving and we are always looking for improved efficient methods and techniques both out in the field and in laboratory. Every research paper or thesis that you read will always ends with ‘future scope’ and that’s what other researchers pick on and continue.