Today, Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome has become a topic of great relevance and interest to a wide spectrum of society. From its impact on the economy to its influence on political decisions, Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome has positioned itself as a central topic in current conversations and discussions. In order to better understand this phenomenon, it is important to analyze its different dimensions and consequences. In this article, we will explore in depth the various facets of Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome and how they have shaped and impacted our environment.
Between 1992 and 2003 she undertook contract work variously for UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the United Nations involving the identification of victims and perpetrators of various conflicts. In 1999, she became the lead forensic anthropologist to the British Forensic Team in Kosovo, deployed by the FCO on behalf of the United Nations and later that year deployed to Sierra Leone and Grenada.
In 2003 she undertook two tours to Iraq. In 2005 she participated in the United Kingdom's contribution to the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification operation (jointly led by the Thai and Australian Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams) as part of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami international response.
In 2003 Black was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee. In 2005, she created the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee (CAHID), which runs undergraduate courses in forensic anthropology and postgraduate courses in anatomy and advanced forensic anthropology. Her department trained the UK National Disaster Victim Identification (UK DVI) team for police and scientists in advanced mortuary practices.
Black has been an innovator in developing techniques and building databases to confirm or disconfirm someone's identity based on photographs of their hands or arms. This technique has become important for the prosecution of paedophiles, who often take and share photographs of their actions. In 2009, Black used vein pattern analysis to confirm the identity of a suspected child abuser, who then pleaded guilty. It was the first time that the technique was used in a criminal conviction.
Black was a Director of the Centre for International Forensic Assistance and a founder of the British Association for Human Identification and the British Association for Forensic Anthropology.
Black married Tom with whom she was at school and university. He studied for a post-graduate qualification in Business and Finance and has been a director of a significant number of companies. The couple have three daughters
Black has authored and co-authored numerous works including:
1997 Essential Anatomy for Anesthesia (co-author)
2000 Developmental Juvenile Osteology (co-author)
2004 The Juvenile Skeleton (co-author)
2009 Juvenile Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual (co-author)
2009 "Forensic Anthropology" in Encyclopaedia of Forensic Sciences (co-author)
2010 Disaster Victim Identification: The Practitioner's Guide (co-author)
2010 "The Neonatal Ilium—Metaphyseal drivers and neurovascular passengers" in The Anatomical Record (co-author)
2010 "Applying Virtual ID" in Police Professional (co-author)
2011 Age Estimation in the Living: The Practitioners Guide (co-author)
2011 Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice (author)
2011 Forensic Anthropology: 2000 to 2010 (co-author)
2014 "Syrian detainee report" (co-author)
2018 All That Remains: A Life in Death (author)
2020 Written in Bone—Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind (author)
Media
Black starred in BBC Two's History Cold Case, which aired two series between 2010 and 2011. In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the UK by BBC Radio 4'sWoman's Hour and in 2014 was also subject of The Life Scientific on the same station. In 2014, she appeared in the documentary "After the Wave: Ten years since the Boxing Day Tsunami" examining the forensic response in Thailand to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
Black and her team at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification were awarded the University of Dundee's Stephen Fry Award for Public Engagement with Research in 2012 and the Queen's Anniversary Award for Higher Education in 2013 and in May 2014, she was awarded a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award for her research into identification from the hand.
^"BLACK, Prof. Susan Margaret (Sue)"(Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press). December 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2016.(subscription required)
^ abBindel, Julie (30 April 2008). "The Bone Detective". The Guardian official website. London. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
^ abMcDermid, Val (2015). Forensics : what bugs, burns, prints, DNA, and more tell us about crime. New York: Grove Press. pp. 166–186. ISBN978-0802125156.
^Gapert, R.; Black, S.; Last, J. (2009). "Sex determination from the occipital condyle: Discriminant function analysis in an Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British sample". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 138 (4): 384–394. doi:10.1002/ajpa.20946. PMID18924165.
^Schaefer, M.C.; Black, S.M. (2005). "Comparison of ages of epiphyseal union in North American and Bosnian skeletal material". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 50 (4): 777–84. doi:10.1520/JFS2004497. PMID16078477.
^Robinson, C.; Eisma, R.; Morgan, B.; Jeffery, A.; Graham, E.A.M.; Black, S.; Rutty, G.N. (2008). "Anthropological Measurement of Lower Limb and Foot Bones Using Multi-Detector Computed Tomography". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 53 (6): 1289–1295. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00875.x. PMID18798776. S2CID37226316.
^"Courses". Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification official website. University of Dundee. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
^"DVI training". Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification. University of Dundee. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
^"About Us". BAHID official website. British Association for Human Identification. Retrieved 18 January 2015. In August of 2001 a small group of experts (led by Peter Vanezis the first President of the Association and Sue Black, the first Secretary).
^Sue M. Black; W. Alastair Chambers (1997). Essential Anatomy for Anesthesia. New York: Churchill Livingstone. ISBN9780443050541.
^Louise Scheuer; Sue M. Black (2000). Developmental Juvenile Osteology. San Diego, California: Academic Press. ISBN9780126240009.
^Louise Scheuer; Sue M. Black (2004). The Juvenile Skeleton. London: Elsevier Academic Press. ISBN9780121028213.
^Maureen Schaefer; Louise Scheuer; Sue M. Black (2009). Juvenile Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual. London: Academic. ISBN9780123746351.
^Patrick S. Randolph-Quinney; Xanthe Mallett; Sue M. Black (2009). "Forensic Anthropology". In Jamieson, Allan; Moenssens, Andre A. (eds.). Wiley Encyclopaedia of Forensic Sciences. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley. ISBN9780470018262.
^Sue M. Black; Graham Walker; Lucina Hackman; Clive Brooks (2010). Disaster Victim Identification: The Practitioner's Guide. Dundee: Dundee University Press. ISBN9781845860363.
^L. Hackman; Sue M. Black (2010). "Applying Virtual ID". Police Professional (220): 16–18.
^Sue M. Black; Anil Aggrawal; Jason Payne-James (2011). Age Estimation in the Living: The Practitioners Guide. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN9780470669785.
^Sue M. Black (2011). Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. ISBN9781420094121.
^Sue M Black; Eilidh Ferguson (2011). Forensic Anthropology: 2000 to 2010. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. ISBN9781439845882.
^"Professor Sue Black". Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification official website. University of Dundee. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
^"Public Engagement Awards". University of Dundee official website. University of Dundee. 2014. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015. The Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification were awarded the 2012 Stephen Fry Award for Excellence in Public Engagement with Research
^"Queen's Anniversary Prize". University of Dundee official website. University of Dundee. 2013. Retrieved 19 January 2015.