Herman Bernitz, president

Herman Bernitz is a private dental practitioner and part time senior Stomatologist in the Department of Oral Pathology and Oral Biology, University of Pretoria , South Africa . He completed his B.Ch.D in 1978, his M.Sc. (Odont) cum laude in Oral Pathology in 1996, and his Dip. Odont. cum laude in Forensic Odontology in 1998. His Ph.D in Forensic Dentistry (2004) was entitled "A Model to Determine the Individual Discrimination Potential of Numerically Analysed Dental Features in the Anterior Twelve Teeth". He lectures in Oral Pathology and Forensic Dentistry, and is manager of Forensic Dental Research. Since 1998 he has acted as forensic consultant during which time he has been involved in all aspects of Forensic Dentistry. He regularly acts as expert witness in Supreme Court cases involving tooth marks. He has attended courses/delivered papers related to forensic odontology, and has published internationally. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Forensic Odonto-Stomatology.  

bernitz@iafrica.com    

Tore Solheim, vice president

Professor of pathology and forensic odontology in the Dental Faculty of Oslo, Norway. Has been active in forensic odontology since 1971 and has been responsible for the service to the police in Norway since 1974. Member of the Norwegian identification commission connected to the Central Criminal Police Bureau in Oslo since 1975. Accepted by the Department of Justice as a forensic medical expert in odontological questions in 1976. Served many years on the Norwegian delegation to Interpol working commission in "disaster victim identification". Chairman of the Norwegian Society of Forensic Odontology in several periods. Main research interests are methods of age estimation and analysis of frequencies of dental details for identification and tooth mark comparison.

tore.solheim@odont.uio.no

Patrick Thevissen, Secretary/treasurer 

Patrick Thevissen finished his dental studies in 1980 at the Rijksuniversiteit Gent, Belgium and started a private dental practice in 1981. In 2005 he obtained his  master's degree (Msc) in forensic odontology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Since 2007 he has worked in the Department of Forensic Odontology at the School of Dentistry, Oral Pathology and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and teaches forensic odontology to international post graduate students. In 2009 he started his Phd thesis at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on the research topic: Non-destructive forensic odontological age estimations revisited. 

denthepa@telenet.be

Judy Hinchliffe, editor JFOS 

Judy was a dental practitioner for many years in the UK and had a part-time teaching commitment to the School of Clinical Dentistry at the University of Sheffield . Gaining the Diploma in Forensic Odontology in 1991, she has many years of independent forensic casework experience to include: court appearances, bite mark analysis, age estimations, identifications and several mass disasters. Judy lectures nationally and internationally on forensic dentistry and has written several articles and contributed to chapters in forensic textbooks. She is a past president of the British Association for Forensic Odontology (BAFO), a member of the American Society of Forensic Odontology, the dental council member for the British Association for Human Identification and is an Honorary Fellow of the new Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Royal College of Physicians, London .  Judy moved to Wellington in 2007 and now divides her time between New Zealand and the UK .

judy.hinchliffe@gmail.com

Sonja Boy, editor of the Newsletter

Sonja Boy obtained her BChD degree at the University of Pretoria in 1995.  After 2 years of running her own private practice in Pretoria, she specialized in Oral and Maxillo-Facial Pathology at the University of Pretoria .  She obtained her degree cum laude in 2001.  She is currently appointed as a senior specialist in Oral and Maxillo-Facial Pathology at the University of Pretoria .  She obtained her degree cum laude in 2001.  She is currently appointed as a senior specialist in Oral and Maxillo-facial Pathology at the University of Pretoria and is the author and co-author of several scientific publications in international and national scientific journals.  She has delivered various international and national congress presentations and is a member of several professional organisations of Dentistry, General Pathology, Maxillo-Facial Pathology as well as Veterinary Dentistry.  She is currently the course organiser of Oral Biology for pre- and post-graduate Dentistry as well as oral hygiene and promoter of several pre-and postgraduate student researc projects.

sonja.boy@up.ac.za