It’s been a funny old month. With only a few weeks left at Teesside before I leave and start my exciting new job at Maynooth University, it quickly became time to start thinking about how I was going to shift my research over to Ireland. The thing about being in one place for so long, …
It’s that time of the year again where we start to think about holidays and annual leave. Maybe you fancy a little city break, or a spot of camping (although God knows why, it’s the worst). Maybe you fancy a trip to the beach, kicking back in the sand and letting the warm waves wash …
This post contains many significant spoilers for the film The Menu currently streaming on Disney+. When I was an undergrad student I used to co-host a weekly movie review show on the university radio station. Demonstrating that I was as cool back then as I am now (this is clearly not one of the spoilers …
Read more “The Menu is a delicious feast for forensic anthropologists”
I never learn. Which is ironic considering the sector I work in. Whenever I get asked if I’d give a paper at a conference, I always think “Oh, that’s ages away, literally months away, I’m busy now but it’ll be fine by then…”. But it never is. Such was the case when I was asked …
Read more “Biocultural Taphonomies: Teasing apart taphonomic filters in bioarchaeology”
Last week I was over at our National Horizons Centre meeting with Dr Jen Vanderhoven and Prof Vikki Rand, our Director and our Bioscience Research Centre lead. We were talking around various topics, including what to focus our efforts on over the next year. I keep saying that the School of Health & Life Sciences …
Last week I was invited to give one of the keynotes at the DigiDeath: Public archaeologies of digital mortality conference hosted by the students of the Archaeology department of the University of Chester. And as an aside for learning & teaching folks, the student-run conference forms part of their module assessment. Anyway, I was delighted …
Read more “#DigiDeath: Should we be Socially Distancing from the Dead?”
As we all know by now, when it comes to academia, I’m pretty chill. I’m both easy and breezy, and I am hardly vengeful at all. So it takes a lot to make me sit down and type furiously at this keyboard brimming as I am with righteous indignation. Although the fact that an earlier …
As you know, I am not one for willingly turning down an opportunity to talk in front of an audience, so I was delighted to be asked to give a talk as part of the series of guest lectures run by the Sherlock Institute of Forensic Science India. I was following some great talks over …
One day, I will learn not to post a glib tweet about a TV show right before bed. But that day will not be anytime soon as we all know that I like the attention… When it comes to forensic science on TV shows, I’m usually pretty zen*. Like a leaf in the wind. I …
When my twelve year old called me a nerd recently, I pointed out that ‘nerd’ pays the bills. And then pointed out that he was an even bigger nerd than I was. And then we laughed, high-fived and went to do our respective homework because that’s how we roll. Clearly, he’s not wrong. And gaming …