Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy in Forensic Science

This book will provide a survey of the major areas in which information derived from vibrational spectroscopy investigations and studies have contributed to the benefit of forensic science, either in a complementary or a unique way. This is highlighted by examples taken from real case studies and analyses of forensic relevance, which provide a focus for current and future applications and developments.

John Chalmers, recently completed post-doctoral research with Professor Edwards at the University of Bradford. He has just joined Litethru, a company based in Daresbury, involved in developing Raman instrumentation for non-invasive analysis.

Howell Edwards is Director of Research in the School of Life Sciences at Bradford University. His studies in the application of Raman spectroscopy to biological / geological interfaces have been extended to a space environment and he was an adjunct scientist for the Mars Express Beagle 2 lander mission, and a contributor to the ESA FOTON 12-Biopan international consortium for the analysis of Martian lithic analogues. He has published over 430 research papers in Raman spectroscopy and is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, Spectrochimica Acta: Biomolecular Spectroscopy, the Internet Journal of Vibrational Spectroscopy and the Asian Journal of Spectroscopy. Currently, he has research collaborations with groups in Spain, France, Denmark, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the USA.
He has lectured widely on Raman spectroscopy and its applications. Professor Edwards is a national committee member of the Molecular Spectroscopy Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and also of the UK Astrobiology Panel.

Mike Hargreaves is an independent consultant in the field of vibrational spectroscopy. He left ICI in 1997 after 22 years, serving as a Business Research Associate in the Science Support Group of ICI Technology. He held the position of chairman of the UK Infrared and Raman Discussion Group (IRDG) for a number of years and is current chairman of the RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) Molecular Spectroscopy Subject Group. He is a member of the Association of British Spectroscopists (ABS) Trust, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 1994, he received the Williams-Wright Award from the Coblentz Society and in 2008 was President of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.