Jules Kieser
Professor Jules Kieser
Lecturer
Dentistry
Think of the television programme CSI and you'll know what forensic dentist Professor Jules Kieser gets up to - identifying the victims or perpetrators in humanity's harshest situations.
"It's not an easy job, but it's a fascinating one," the School of Dentistry Oral Sciences Department head says.
Prof Kieser was instrumental in establishing the School of Dentistry's Forensic Dental Unit. It does both professional work, like body identification (unit members were among the experts who identified Boxing Day tsunami victims) and research in areas such as bite mark analysis and blood-spatter patterns.
He and a colleague have done groundbreaking work on bacteriological fingerprinting of bite marks, where the unique streptococci bacteria transferred by a bite may be used to identify offenders in sex crimes or child abuse.
As well as teaching dentistry and biological anthropology papers, Prof Kieser is working on introducing a new postgraduate forensics course at Otago. Students work with ESR and United States experts on a range of interesting topics such as radiographic techniques, blood-spatter analysis and bacteriological fingerprinting.
"The exciting thing is that modern dentistry has become a very dynamic and fast developing area, offering exciting opportunities from cosmetic work with high-tech materials to volunteer work in poorer parts of the world.
Our Otago degree is excellent. The Faculty is one of the best in Australasia with world-class staff and a great multicultural atmosphere. We're housed in one building, which makes for great cohesion - friendships formed here last forever."
