Blood spatters tell revealing stories. For Theresa Stotesbury, an award-winning Materials Science Ph.D. candidate at Trent University, it’s her job to create the safest environment possible for professionals tasked with unlocking bloodstained secrets.

So far, the results of this collaborative research with experts from several departments at Trent, which was recently featured in Maclean’s Magazine, are very positive.

With a goal to protect investigators, students and researchers while they are reconstructing crime scenes or conducting DNA or bloodstain pattern analysis, her work to create synthetic blood that mimics the real thing, brings together many partners, including Trent’s Forensic Science and Chemistry departments, and the OPP.

“I love to understand how things work at a molecular level,” says Ms. Stotesbury. “Research like this, which can help to support and improve the justice system, is incredibly satisfying and rewarding.”

Working alongside Dr. Paul Wilson, Canada research chair in DNA profiling, forensics and functional genomics, and Dr. Andrew Vreugdenhil, associate professor and chair of Chemistry and past-director of the Trent Centre for Materials Research, Ms. Stotesbury works with silicon colloid chemistry to create the realistic fluid. The next step of her research will look at how DNA can be included in the material.

Working alongside Mike Illes, a faculty member in the Forensic Science department and retired Ontario Provincial Police Identification Staff Sergeant, she uses a high-speed video camera to examine how bloodstain patterns form, particularly when the substance is struck by a weapon.  Ms. Stotesbury previously worked with the OPP when she was an Honours B.Sc. student in Forensic Science at Trent.

“Forensics is a small but mighty field,” states Ms. Stotesbury, who returned to Trent to complete her Ph.D. after studying in New Zealand. “Trent seemed like a right fit to pursue my dreams.  It is a great university for interdisciplinary graduate research.”

She also feels interdisciplinary collaboration and partnerships bring aspects of the sciences to forensic practitioners in the real world. With help from Dr. Cathy Bruce, dean of the School of Education, Ms. Stotesbury’s research team also developed forensic bloodstain laboratories for use by high school science students.

Ms. Stotesbury is a winner of the Symons Medal, the Daniel Rhan Memorial Grant and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, considered a most prestigious scholarship for doctoral students. In the future Ms. Stotesbury hopes to work in a position that involves real casework and connects crime scene investigators and academic researchers.