Life after death

Filling a niche

Facilities like AFTER, more colloquially called ‘body farms’, are extremely rare. Housed within UTS’s Centre for Forensic Science, AFTER was founded in 2016 as a collaborative effort between academia, law enforcement agencies and forensic institutions. 

Prior to this, Australian forensic investigators had to rely on experiments conducted with pig cadavers or data collected from other facilities. Since opening its doors, AFTER has had a profound impact on researchers and investigators in Australia who have been able to not only practice their craft, but also build a profile for how this country’s unique environment affects the decomposition process. 

“The way the body breaks down is so dependent on the climate and the environment that you’re in, so you can’t really use data from the US for cases here in Australia,” Ueland says. 

“We really needed a taphonomic facility here where we could study decomposition on human cadavers as it’s more relevant to case work. We’re allowing methods and technologies to be tested in real-life conditions, using actual human donors, which is not something you can do in other parts of Australia.”

Better than fiction 

Ueland has always been interested in forensics. Growing up in her native Norway, she consumed a steady diet of Scandinavian crime fiction and had thoughts of becoming a detective. 

“I loved puzzles and wanted to help prevent crime and make the world a better place … who doesn’t,” she says. 

“I was also into science and always wanted to use science to help prevent crime or solve crime. But I didn’t know what I could study and what I needed to do to get the job I wanted.”

While applying to universities, she toyed with studying medical science as a pathway into the police force. But a tip from a friend to research ‘forensic science’ sent her down a different route. Ueland ended up in Canada studying forensic science and chemistry. After attending a lecture on forensic taphonomy, she knew it was the perfect way to combine her love of science and mysteries. 

“There’s a lot of variables and still so much we don’t know about the decomposition process, and I was really intrigued by that,” she says. 

During her final year, Ueland worked on an honours project where she crossed paths with Australian forensic scientist Shari Forbes. After Forbes received an offer at UTS, Ueland followed her there to pursue a PhD, which she earned in 2016. Forbes helped found AFTER the same year, and for Ueland it was an easy transition into studying the chemical markers of decomposition at the new facility. She’s been there ever since and now proudly holds the title of AFTER Director since 2023. 

Sniffing out answers

While a wide variety of research is conducted at AFTER, most projects fall into three main buckets: search and recovery; victim identification; and determining time and cause of death. 

In her role as researcher, Ueland is passionate about developing technology that brings closure to cases involving missing or deceased persons. Her latest project is developing an electronic nose that can detect compounds emitted during decomposition. 

The device works like an electronic detection dog. Extremely sensitive sensors pick up chemical markers of decomposition such as sulphur. Once a marker is detected by a sensor, the device interprets this as a voltage change to indicate the strength of the marker’s presence. Different sensors are dedicated to picking up different chemicals, increasing the device’s accuracy. 

Initial tests are promising, with the device performing on par with cadaver detection dogs – a massive success, according to Ueland. 

“In tests where we probe a potential grave site and get a positive signal, we then bring the dogs in to see if they also alert and they always do,” she says. 

Ueland sees many scenarios where an electronic nose offers benefits. It can work alongside cadaver detection dogs to confirm their results. The device attached to a drone or robot can be used in situations that might be dangerous for dogs to enter, such as after a plane crash or an explosion. It also offers a more cost-effective solution to detecting decomposition, as cadaver dogs are expensive to use and take years of training before they’re ready to be deployed. 

She is currently experimenting with different parameters to test the limits of the technology compared to the skills of cadaver detection dogs. For example, how the length of time a person has been dead affects the machine’s ability to detect decomposition. 

“A missing person can be from any period, so you need to have technology that can find recently deceased individuals, which ‘smell’ a lot more and therefore are easier to detect,” she says. 

“But you can also have people missing for decades. So we’re still testing how far along we can push the capabilities of the technology.”

So far, she’s tested the nose with finding individuals deceased for up to a month, with plans to continue experimenting with different timelines. 

Another area she’s looking at is improving the usability of the device so it doesn’t require specialist training or deep technical knowledge to operate. This includes reviewing how the device presents feedback on the compounds it detects so users can easily interpret when the device gets a hit. To this end, she’s developing a software in collaboration with colleagues at UTS that can present the data in a very user-friendly interface. Other areas for improvement include miniaturisation and improving the sensitivity of the system, as well as incorporating drone or remote-control capabilities so it can be deployed autonomously in hazardous situations. 

Ready for anything

While Ueland regularly conducts her own research at AFTER, in her capacity as Director she is conscious of ensuring the facility is as useful to law enforcement agencies and researchers as possible. AFTER has a strong focus on practical research, but where it really distinguishes itself is in training for worst-case scenario situations. 

“Where we have a lot of impact is in the disaster space – not a lot of organisations or other facilities are doing disaster preparedness and training,” Ueland says. 
 
“That’s really putting Australia at the forefront. It means we’re going to be a leader in how we prepare and set up for disasters.”

AFTER tries to create something unique with each disaster scenario. The most recent exercise, held in November 2024, was a simulated terrorist attack involving a bombed building. Ueland says she wants to continue to offer a variety of scenarios and bring in new elements, such as indoor crime scenes, natural disasters like bushfires, and perhaps one day even a plane crash.

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and others from around Australia and the world are invited to take part in these exercises, which happen about once a year. Ueland has been involved in seven so far. In that time, she’s seen the scope expand from just UTS and one partner at the first exercise, to now including major national and international partners. 

November’s activities involved Australian agencies such as the Australian Federal Police and NSW Police, international groups such as Interpol, and myriad researchers testing the latest in DNA collection, victim identification and location technologies including LiDAR. 

As much collaboration as possible is the goal, and Ueland wants AFTER to have an open-door policy for anyone looking to expand knowledge in the field of forensic science. 

“We’re getting a lot of international partners that have really fantastic capabilities, so working with them might give us some new avenues to explore so we can answer the big questions in forensics,” Ueland says. 

“We’re never going to be able to solve everything ourselves and we need as many brains as possible to go at it. We need to take knowledge from as many areas and as many experts as we can and work on a problem together, not just here in Australia but globally as well.”

Ueland says she feels incredibly lucky to do what she does and be part of the research and training that happens at AFTER. It brings her back to her childhood dream of doing work that makes the world a better place. 

“I see it making a difference, and that’s incredibly rewarding,” Ueland says. 

“I feel really inspired by the work that’s being done at AFTER. It makes me feel optimistic for the future and how we can improve research on a global scale.”