An Expert Witness – Sue Black

in conversation with Dan Barcroft
Sat 10 October, 2026 at 3:00 pm

Sue Black, the UK’s leading forensic scientist, has forty years’ experience analysing criminal case evidence and as an expert witness. In An Expert Witness, using shocking landmark cases, she puts forensic science itself on trial. From nineteenth-century poisonings to modern sex crimes, the first identification techniques to AI, Sue traces the evolution of forensics. She shows how the scientist sits in a fraught and critical relationship with law enforcers and the Law. And while there have been huge leaps forward such as the discovery of DNA fingerprinting there are also miscarriages of justice.

Professor Lady Sue Black is President of St John’s College, Oxford and former Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee. She was lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to forensic anthropology and is a Lady of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.

Dan Barcroft is Director of Communications and External Relations at the University of Sheffield.