Dr Sheila Willis

Qualifications/Postnominals: BSc. MSc (Mgt). PhD. FCSFS. Fellow LRCFS.   

Professional Background

Sheila Willis received her education in University College Dublin where she completed a research in organometallic chemistry for a Ph.D. degree in 1977. She was delighted to receive an honorary doctorate from the same university in 2019 in recognition of her contribution to forensic science.

Her career was spent in Forensic Science Ireland which she joined in 1979, and from where she retired as Director General in 2017. While her interests in forensic science are wide ranging, her practitioner experience was in the area of trace evidence, where she was especially interested in fibres and also explosives. She spent the last two years researching the scientific foundations of DNA mixture interpretation at National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA where her aim was to highlight the need for a better understanding of the implications of transfer and persistence of DNA.

She recognised early on the challenges of communicating the value of scientific findings so that the benefits and limitations were understood. She has published a number of articles in the forensic science literature and is particularly proud of the ethics chapter in the Forensic Science Handbook edited by Williams and Fraser and of her contribution to the ENFSI guideline for evaluative reporting.

CSFS Background

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