$50,000 to Uni expert for tsunami victim ID
[ UniNews Vol. 14, No. 2
21 February - 7 March 2005 ] by Paul Richiardi
The first $50,000 of $250,000 allocated by the University of Melbourne to support staff engaged on tsunami relief projects in the next few years will aid forensic odontologist, Professor John Clement (Dental Science), on work in Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Professor Clements role in Thailand will include working with local authorities responsible for examining and identifying bodies. In Sri Lanka he will work with a small team of Australian colleagues advising government on the future education and training of experts in scientific and forensic human identification.
The new funding to support Professor Clements tsunami relief work was approved recently by the Universitys Planning and Budget Committee. It follows on from the Universitys cash donation of $250,000 for immediate relief in affected areas which has been distributed to four key aid agencies the Red Cross, UNICEF, Oxfam and CARE Australia.
Professor Clement, in addition to his role as Professor of Forensic Odontology at Melbourne, is also part-time Director of a newly-formed Centre for Human Identification at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM), formally associated with the University.
His tsunami relief role to date has largely focused on helping organise the Australian component of the forensic odontology teams working in Thailand through the Australian Society of Forensic Dentistry.
Australia was requested by the Thai authorities to assist and occupies a pivotal role as joint chiefs of staff for the investigating authorities.
Professor Clement was recently at Australian Federal Police headquarters in Canberra for an in-camera briefing on the situation in Thailand.
As this edition of UniNews went to press Professor Clement was in Canada briefing Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) dental team leader Dr David Sweet, Director of the Bureau of Legal Dentistry (BOLD) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The Canadians are about to despatch a dental DVI team to Thailand. I shall be working there mid to late March at the newly created Thailand Tsunami Victim Identification Centre to assist with victim identification, he reports.
Ill then go to Sri Lanka with a joint University of MelbourneVIFM Centre for Human Identification team to give advice and training there in early April.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Peter McPhee, who heads the Universitys Tsunami Taskforce, says the Universitys strategy for longer term assistance to tsunami disaster areas is focused on facilitating the expertise of the University and enabling expert staff to travel to affected areas.
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