Emeritus Professor Roger Byard

• Awards & Achievements

  Emeritus Professor Roger Byard AO PSM, DSc, FAHMS (BMedSci, MB, BS, MMedSci-Paed, PhD, MD, FCAP, FRCPC, FRCPath, FRCPA, FFFLM, FFSc, FRSN, FFPMI) held the Marks Chair of  Pathology at The University of Adelaide from 2006 to 2023 and is currently a Senior Specialist Forensic Pathologist at Forensic Science SA in Adelaide, Australia.

  He was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor by the University of Adelaide Council in 2023 for distinguished and sustained service to the University.

  In 2022 he was ranked globally by ScholarGPS (ID 29056650139391) as the leading scholar in both Forensic Science (lifetime) and in Medical Jurisprudence (prior five years). In addition he was listed as a Life Time Highly Ranked Scholar in the top 0.05% of 30 million scholars worldwide.

  In November 2021 in the Australian National Research Awards Professor Byard was also named a world leader in forensic science among Australia's top lifetime achievers chosen for the consistent excellence of their work and the impact they have had. He was one of the 12 Australian Global Leaders in research across all disciplines and was also the recipient of the 2021 University of Adelaide Award for Outstanding Achievement and Excellence in Research.

  In 2023 he was ranked as the top-rated expert of 150,109 published authors internationally in the Forensic Sciences 2013-2023. (https://expertscape.com/ex/forensic+science - data derived from the US National Library of Medicine PubMed database). In 2023 he had the highest Research Interest Score (based on multiple publication parameters on Research Gate) of all researchers in Forensic Science and >99% in all disciplines.

  In 2004 he was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal (PSM) for outstanding service to paediatric pathology, and in 2013 became an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to medicine in the field of forensic pathology. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) for distinguished professional achievements and outstanding leadership in a field related to health and medicine. Two years later in 2018 he received the John Harbor Phillips Award from ANZPAA/NIFS (National Institute of Forensic Science) for outstanding achievement and excellence in the advancement of the forensic sciences in Australia and New Zealand. He was registered as an Expert with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague in 2009 and was a member of a War Crimes Commission in Bosnia Herzegovina from 2019-2021. 

  In 2000 he received the SIDS International Global Strategy Task Force Award in recognition of an outstanding contribution and support for global strategies to reduce infant mortality and in 2006  a National SIDS and Kids Award for his tireless commitment to reducing infant mortality in Australia and overseas and for his compassion and care to bereaved families. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death (ISPID). He has received 18 awards for published papers and book chapters from the National Institute of Forensic Science, Australia.

  He qualified in medicine in Australia in 1978 (University of Tasmania) and then undertook five years of clinical practice. This included Flying Doctor/Aeromedical work in the Northern Territory, Australia (NE Arnhem Land) and training and qualifying in family practice, as well as studying physical and medical anthropology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. He became a licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada in 1982 (LMCC). He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of the United Kingdom (FRCPath), a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists (FCAP), a Fellow of the National Association of Medical Examiners in the United States, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCPC), and was certified in Family Medicine by the Canadian College of Family Physicians (CCFP).  He is a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom (FFFLM), a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Science of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FFSc), a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Post-Mortem Imaging of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FFPMI) and a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA).

  He is an alumnus of 6 universities: the University of Tasmania, The University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia (Australia), McMaster University, the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa (Canada).

  He has a specific interest in sudden infant and childhood death, in addition to more general forensic research, and has published 982 peer-reviewed papers and 145 chapters (>550 first authorships, with >1,000 publications listed on Pubmed).

  In 2005 he was  one of the top 10 most prolific authors of papers published in the leading forensic science and legal medicine journals 1981-2003 (Int J Leg Med 2005;119:59-65).

  In 2020 he was ranked in the top 2% of scientists worldwide by Stanford University and number two in the field of Legal and Forensic Medicine. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345921476_Worlds_Top_2_Scientists_by_Stanford_University)

  In 2021 he was again  in the top 10 of the "elite group" of highly cited forensic practitioners ranked among the top 100,000 highly cited scientists (Int J Leg Med 2021;135:701-7)

  He has  had more than 1000 papers delivered at meetings,workshops, invited lectures/chairs and community presentations. In addition he has coedited/written the following texts:

  1994 - Sudden Death in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence (Cambridge University Press); 

  2001 - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - Problems, Progress and Possibilities (Arnold Publishers);

  2004 - Sudden Death in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence (2nd ed, Cambridge University Press) (Highly commended in the British Medical Associations Annual Book Awards, United Kingdom, 2005);

  2005 - Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (Academic Press - four volumes) (Awarded the Medicolegal Society Prize from the Society of Authors and The Royal Society of Medicine, United Kingdom, 2006; Highly commended in the British Medical Associations Annual Book Awards, United Kingdom, 2006);

  2010 - Sudden Death in the Young (3rd ed, Cambridge University Press, Japanese language edition 2015);

  2012 - Atlas of Forensic Pathology (Springer Publishers, Farsi language edition, 2015);

  2014 - Forensic Pathology of Infancy and Childhood (Springer Publishers - two volumes);

  2016 - Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (2nd ed, Elsevier/Academic Press - four volumes);

  2018 - SIDS and Sudden Infant Death: the Past, the Present and the Future (University of Adelaide Press)

  2020 - Geriatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology (Cambridge University Press). (Awarded the British Medical Association [BMA] Book Award, 2021 for an "outstanding contribution to medical literature" and The University of Adelaide Publication Excellence Award, 2021).

  2024 - Forensic and Legal Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects (CRC Press; Taylor and Francis Publishers).

  2025 - Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (3rd ed, Elsevier - in press).

  2025 - Oxford Handbook of Forensic Medicine (Oxford University Press - in preparation).

  He was the Editor-in-Chief/Managing Editor of Forensic Science Medicine and Pathology (Springer Publishers, New York) from 2008 to 2021.

  He was awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal (HOSM - Indian Ocean clasp - for "humanitarian service overseas in hazardous circumstances"), the RCPA medal and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Operations Medal (Cawdor and Alliance clasps) for disaster victim identification work in Bali after the bombings in 2002 and in Thailand after the tsunami in 2004. He received the John Emery Memorial Medal from the Paediatric Pathology Society in the United Kingdom in 2012. He has a commitment to investigating human rights and gender-based issues and violations and has recently published on acid attacks, menstrual health management, manual scavenging, dowry deaths, "honour" killings and child labour.

  He gave the:

  • John Emery Oration for the Society for Paediatric Pathology 58th Annual Scientific Meeting in Madrid, Spain in October 2012;
  • Alfred Steinschneider Memorial Lecture for the American Association of SIDS Prevention Physicians 26th Annual Conference in Naples, United States in September 2018;
  • Arthur Cobbold Memorial Lectures for the University of Tasmania, Australia in June 2019.
  • Frederick Jaffe Memorial Lecture for the University of Toronto, Canada in October 2021.
    

  He presented at the Dark MOFO Festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in June 2019, and has been invited to give educational forensic workshops/presentations in a number of countries including Argentina, Austria, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay. He was made an Honorary Member of the College of Forensic and Legal Medicine of Sri Lanka in 2009 and a Visiting Professor at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 2017. He was asked to advise the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition, Colombo, Sri Lanka, on a series of post-vaccination deaths in 2009, and the World Health Organization (WHO) on a series of post-COVID vaccination deaths in Lesotho in 2021. He became an Affiliate Researcher with the Oslo University Hospital in 2023.

  In 2010 he was the invited International Academy of Pathology Visiting Lecturer to South Africa, and in 2011 was the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Visiting Overseas Professor to South East Asia (Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong). He was a member of a Health Professionals' Delegation to Myanmar (2013), with a second invited visit in 2016.

  He has been an invited reviewer for the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death, United Kingdom , the National Science Foundation, Republic of Georgia, the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and is registered as an international expert with the National Center of Science and Technology, Republic of Kazakhstan, and the European Research Council (ERC) of the European Commission.

  He has attended court or given expert opinion on cases from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Norway, Fiji, Samoa, Argentina, the United Kingdom and the United States, and has performed autopsies for medicolegal authorities in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Germany, Samoa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

  He was made a Professorial Fellow at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, in 2013, and received Distinguished Alumni Awards from The University of Adelaide  in 2013 (in recognition of outstanding leadership and contribution nationally and internationally in the field of forensic pathology) and the University of Tasmania in 2016 (for distinguished service to medicine and outstanding achievements in forensic pathology). He became a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 2018 in recognition of outstanding contributions to pathology and to the medical and wider community.

  In 2021 Professor Byard was made an Emeritus Member of the National Scientific Advisory Group (NSAG) of Red Nose for "an extraordinary contribution over a significant time period". He was also appointed a Member of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales (FRSN). In 2022 he became a Fellow of the University of Tasmania Domain Society and received the Inaugural Lifetime Service Award from Forensic Science SA for sustained outstanding contributions to forensic pathology.

  In addition to his basic medical and other post graduate qualifications Professor Byard has three higher doctorates: a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), a Doctor of Medicine (MD) and a Doctor of Science (DSc).

  He was a finalist in the Australian of the Year Awards for Tasmania for 2024.

  His publications can be accessed through Google Scholar, PubMed and ResearchGate.

  Online public lectures/documentaries/presentations include:

       1.       Death in Hobart, Australian Academy of Science, 2016

  ·       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHZD6KUdIiM&feature=youtu.be

       2.       Lawless – the Real Bushrangers, Foxtel, 2017.

  ·       https://www.historychannel.com.au/shows/lawless-the-real-bushrangers/episodes/lawless-the-real-bushrangers/

  3.       Lessons from the Mortuary, Dark MOFO Festival, 2019.

  ·       https://livestream.com/accounts/7587656/events/8693050 

  4.       Herbal Peril, The University of Adelaide Research Tuesday Lecture, 2019.

  ·       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0weqeLy2Ac

       5.      Guardians of the Dead, University of Adelaide/Newscorp Podcast Series, 2021.

  ·       https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/guardians-of-the-dead/id1588033644?uo=4

       6.     My life as a non-clinical scientist - Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, 2022

  https://aahms.org/video/professor-roger-byard-lacs-sa-2022/

   

   

   

Entry last updated: Monday, 16 Sep 2024

To link to this page, please use the following URL:  https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/roger.byard