Dr Helen Langstaff
Contact
Biography
Helen completed her BSc in Forensic Science at the University of Central Lancashire in 2008. She then moved to University of Edinburgh completing an MSc Forensic Anthropology in 2010 and PhD looking at the ‘Heritability of facial morphology’ in 2016. She moved to Dundee in 2016 and is a senior lecture in forensic anthropology. She has a PGCAPHE and is a fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Helen is the programme lead for the BSc Forensic Anthropology and teach both undergraduate and postgraduate. Helen is the Associate Dean for People, Culture and Performance for the School of Science and Engineering and was previously the Senior adviser of studies. Helen is also a member of University Senate.
Helen is a consultant on the Virtual Anthropology Service run by the University of Dundee and an case active forensic anthropologist working with Procurators Fiscal and Police Scotland on a regular basis to assist in criminal and non-criminal investigations. She is professionally accredited at FAII Level with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI).
Research
PhD supervision
- Current - The taxonomy of error in case work in the US due to ancestry and sex assessment. 1st supervisor
- Current - Support and experiences of working-class students in higher education. 2nd supervisor
- Current - The use of stature estimation in the modern British population. 1st supervisor
- Current – Textile reporting in forensic anthropology, archaeology and forensic science. 1st supervisor
- Comparison of epidermal and dermal fingerprints collected from Thiel-embalmed bodies
- The manual analysis of human biometric identifiers in non-pathological retinal fundus images: An evaluation of presented methodologies and a survey of identifiers within open source databases
Helen is open to supervision inquiries in the areas of stature estimation in human identification, 3D skeletal modelling, error and bias in forensic science and student experience in higher education.
Scholarship
Helen is conducting scholarship in the areas of student anxiety and resilience at university. She has looked into the impact of COVID on the resilience of students. This has led to changes in the resourcing of students to enable them to better cope with the transitions in and through university. She is also conducting analysis on the and the impact of paid work during university. Helen has also collaborated on creating a module on resilience for forensic science students looking at the impact of vicarious trauma and the training of resilience for those going into challenging work place situations.
Helen's research outputs can be seen in Discovery The university research portal.
Teaching
Helen teaches a number of aspects of forensic anthropology and the wider field of biological anthropology. Helen teaches across all levels but the majority of her teaching is in level 4 (UG) and 5 (TPG). She specialises in human and comparative osteology, forensic human identification (population affinity, sex, age and stature estimation) and forensic report writing. These are all taught in a variety of mediums including lectures, labs, seminars, workshops and encompass an array of assessment methods. She also supervises BSc and MSc research projects. Helen is the programme lead for the BSc Forensic Anthropology.
Committees
I am an elected member of the RAI FA Committee which maintains professional standards in forensic anthropology across the UK.
Media availability
I am available for media commentary on my research.
Contact Corporate Communications for media enquiries.
Areas of expertise
- Forensic investigation