Undergraduate Programmes 2020 | 3
Welcome to
Forensic Science
Welcome to Forensic Science at Keele University. This brochure is intended
to tell you more about the undergraduate degree programmes
we offer and what it is like to study Forensic Science at Keele.
But don’t just take our word for it. Find out what some of our graduates
feel about their Keele experience, read what career choices
they have made and how their Forensic Science degree from
Keele has prepared them for life after university.
Forensic Science is often defined as the application
of science to the work of the courts of law. In many
people’s minds this leads to a focus on crime scene
investigation which, though a very important part of
the forensic process, does not fully provide a true
picture of what the forensic scientist actually does
and what knowledge and skills you need to be a
professional forensic scientist. So what makes forensic science distinctive and why
is a degree in forensic science different to studying
other sciences?
The forensic discipline embraces a wide range
of scientific topics, many of which are based on
analytical science – the science of measurement,
characterising materials, usually at the molecular
level, and determining what is in a sample and how
much of various components are there. Secondly, it is problem-based where the problem
is explaining the physical evidence, and so the
scientist has to be able to devise and apply
methods of experimental investigation and analysis
appropriate to each individual situation.
Such scientific investigations are applied to
physical evidence - that is materials found at
crime scenes or associated with potentially illegal
activities; examples include explosive residues,
drugs, inks, glass fragments, fire accelerants,
paints, fibres and hairs. In practice this means
using microscopy, chromatography, spectroscopy
and related specialist techniques which are also
fundamental to some laboratory work in chemistry,
biology and geology, to examine forensic materials.
Forensic science also includes the science of
pattern matching as applied to fingerprints, shoe-
marks, tool-marks and tyre-marks as well as
other specialist areas of study which are relevant
to forensic investigation such as pathology,
anthropology, blood-spatter analysis, ballistics,
geosciences and digital sciences.
Firstly, forensic science is a broadly-based discipline
incorporating many aspects of the core sciences so
if you enjoy working across several areas of science
then forensic science may be for you.
Thirdly, the forensic scientist needs to understand
the context of the case in order to properly interpret
the experimental results and communicate their
meaning to the court. This also implies that the
forensic scientist must be able to explain their
scientific work in a clear and understandable
way to non-scientists such as those work in
the legal system.
These generic attributes of the forensic scientist
are also strongly relevant to the analytical scientist
working in business and industry where the
problems relate to commercial products, their
development, production and quality control; for
example, in the environmental, pharmaceutical or
chemical products sectors. For this reason, studying
a forensic science degree with a strong emphasis
on analytical science will prepare you well for a
wide range of science-based careers outside of the
forensic business sector, as well as within it.
keele.ac.uk/forensic