Gaille MacKinnon BA, MSc, MFSSoc

Forensic anthropologist and archaeologist* with over 10 years experience in the excavation and examination of decomposed, skeletonised, fragmented, burned and commingled human remains (*until the recent demise of the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners, I was a registered and peer-reviewed practitioner within the forensic anthropology section of the CRFP).

Professional experience includes deployment as:

• Anthropologist/archaeologist with the forensic field team of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, 1998-2000.
• Forensic anthropologist on a number of the IRA ‘Disappeared’ cases in the Republic of Ireland, 1999.
• Forensic archaeologist/anthropologist involved in the search, exhumation and recovery of murdered United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone, June 2001.
• Forensic anthropologist to the World Trade Center mass disaster victim identification team, Office of Chief Medical Examiner, New York City, 2001-2002.
• Anthropologist deployed to Iraq to assist in the repatriation of victims following the bombing of the United Nations Headquarters, Canal Hotel, Baghdad, August 2005.
• Anthropologist involved in the analysis of human remains from a series of terrorist bombings in Iraq, 2005.
• Anthropologist deployed to London for the Metropolitan Police Service following the bombings of July 7, 2005.
• Anthropologist involved in the identification of victims from the Royal Air Force Nimrod crash in Afghanistan, September 2006.
• Anthropologist/archaeologist for the States of Jersey Police investigation on the Haut de la Garenne child abuse cases, 2008.

More recently, I have been working with the Centre for Battlefield Studies, Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD), as the Supervising Forensic Anthropologist on a limited excavation and evaluation project to assess the condition of human remains within a number of First World War mass graves in Fromelles, France.

I also have extensive experience in training police officers, crime scene managers, investigators, military personnel and human rights professionals in the identification and recovery of human remains and forensic evidence from scenes of crime.

Relevant archaeological experience includes: the excavation and analysis of human remains from the Pre-Dynastic Cemetery at Hierakopolis, Egypt for the Petrie Museum, University College London; the excavation and analysis of human remains from the Graeco-Roman cemetery at the Pyramid of Senwosret III at Dahshur, Egypt for the Egyptian Expedition of the Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the excavation of mass grave pits from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital, Spitalfields, London, for the Museum of London Archaeology Service; and the analysis of commingled human remains from a Roman period cave site in Croatia for the Croatian Academy of Arts & Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia & the Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.