FACULTY OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

The Department of Forensic Medicine is offering a three-year PhD fellowship. The PhD fellowship is conditioned on enrolment as PhD-student. The PhD fellowship is within the field of age estimation in the forensic context and is available from August 1st, 2025 or as soon as possible hereafter.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The PhD project will focus on the applications of age estimation with a particular focus on forensic genetic casework.
The estimation of the age of an individual from biological material is of great importance in forensic casework. Prediction of chronological age can help to describe an alleged perpetrator in situations where there is neither a suspect nor a match of the DNA profile in the database. Besides being informative in criminal investigations, age estimation can also be important in human identification of victims and human remains, e.g. in mass disasters, and in immigration cases where the age of e.g. asylum seekers without valid documentation is important for the protection status subadult asylum seekers have under the law.
The work will focus on age estimation in different tissues with forensic relevance (blood, buccal swabs, hair, bones, etc). The recovery of viable DNA methylation profiles from low template and trace samples will also be evaluated. Relevant population data for the establishment of age estimation models will be produced.
The project will be performed at the Section of Forensic Genetics, Department of Forensic Medicine.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The key tasks as a PhD student at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences are:

• Perform an independent research project under supervision
• Complete PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS points
• Participate in other research environments including an external stay at another research group
• Gain experience in teaching or other types of research dissemination related to the PhD project
• Write a PhD thesis on the grounds of the project

• Perform an independent research project under supervision
• Complete PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS points
• Participate in other research environments including an external stay at another research group
• Gain experience in teaching or other types of research dissemination related to the PhD project
• Write a PhD thesis on the grounds of the projec