The Life Scientific

The Life Scientific

BBC Radio 4

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future

Categories: Science & Medicine

Listen to the last episode:

Dr Sheila Willis is a forensic scientist who was Director General of Forensic Science Ireland for many years.

She has spent her life using science to help solve cases, working on crime scenes and then analysing material in the lab, and presenting scientific evidence in court.

It’s a complicated business. Forensic science relies on powerful technology, such as DNA analysis, but it cannot be that alone - it’s also about human judgement, logical reasoning and asking the right questions.

It is these fundamentals of forensic science that Sheila has fought for through her long career and what she fears may be becoming lost from the field now.

We find out what happens when the two very different worlds of science and the law clash in the courtroom. How to walk the line of presenting scientific evidence where there is pressure to be definitive where often science cannot be - and what this part of the job has in common with food packaging.

And what makes a good forensic scientist?

We’ll turn the studio at London’s Broadcasting House into a live crime scene to see if host Professor Jim Al-Khalili would be any good as a forensic investigator…

Produced by Gerry Holt

Previous episodes

  • 305 - Sheila Willis on using science to help solve crime 
    Wed, 27 Mar 2024
  • 304 - Sir Charles Godfray on parasitic wasps and the race to feed nine billion people 
    Tue, 19 Mar 2024
  • 303 - Jonathan Van-Tam on Covid communication and the power of football analogies 
    Tue, 12 Mar 2024
  • 302 - Michael Wooldridge on AI and sentient robots 
    Tue, 19 Dec 2023
  • 301 - Mercedes Maroto-Valer on making carbon dioxide useful 
    Tue, 12 Dec 2023
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