Churchill Fellowships are awarded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for British people from all walks of life to ‘Travel to learn – Return to Inspire’.
They fund overseas travel for fellows to “bring back inspiration and examples of best practice for the benefit of others in their community or profession”. This year saw 1,798 people apply for just 150 fellowships.
Zoe, a Lecturer in Forensic and Investigative Sciences at Anglia Ruskin, will travel to Canada and Australia to work with researchers and practitioners in forensic evidence recovery and fingerprint enhancement, particularly focusing on how they use forensic evidence in challenging environments.
Before becoming an academic, Zoe spent 13 years as a Crime Scene Investigator working on both cold cases and high profile investigations. She explained: “The aim of the fellowship is to draw on international expertise as I continue my work to develop a method for fingerprint enhancement on forensic evidence that has been buried.
“Although in the UK we have excellent processes for using fingerprint evidence from crime scenes, this is much more difficult once that evidence has been buried.
“Burial is used by not just those seeking to hide a body, but also by organised crime groups and others to hide weapons, drugs and cash. Through my research, assisted by this Churchill Fellowship, I’m hoping to find new ways of using forensic science to link buried items to those people committing serious crimes.”