Digital Technology for Forensic Footwear Analysis and Vertebrate Ichnology

Professor Matthew Bennett's passion for geography and geology comes from a childhood spent in Snowdonia. Born in Oldham (UK) Matthew has worked widely throughout the world on a range of geological projects. He completed his BSc in Physical Geography at Queen Mary College (University of London) in 1988 and went on to do a PhD in glacial geology in 1991 at Edinburgh University. Taking up an appointment at the University of Greenwich in 1992 Matthew worked throughout the 1990s on a range of glacial and Quaternary research projects in the Arctic specifically in Norway, Svalbard, Iceland, Alaska and Canada, as well as throughout the UK. He published widely on aspects of glaciology, sedimentology and geomorphology. In 2002 he joined Bournemouth University as Professor in Environmental and Geographical Sciences and started to work in Central America on various Quaternary and geo-archaeological projects. In 2007 he was invited to join the Koobi Fora Field School organised at the time by Rutgers University and the National Museum of Kenya. His work on the Ileret footprints was published in Science in 2009. This human track site is the second oldest known human footprint site in the world and dates from 1.5 million years ago. Since then, and working extensively throughout Africa, Matthew has published widely on ancient footprints developing new techniques and analytical procedures. In 2015, in conjunction with Professor Marcin Budka, Matthew was awarded an Innovation Grant by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to translate their footprint research in to a practical tool for use by forensic scientists. This project was supported by the UK Home Office and National Crime Agency. The result was the launch of DigTrace (Digital Tracks Capture and Analysis) an integrated freeware solution for the capture and analysis of footwear (& footprint) evidence in July 2016.