Professor Turi King, charting the rise in the use of DNA in genealogy and forensics, including, tracing long lost family members, catching criminals to identifying the bones of King Richard III.


Turi Emma King (born 31 December 1969) is a Canadian-British professor of Public engagement and Genetics at the University of Leicester. She is best known for her work in "cracking one of the biggest forensic DNA cases in history" during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England. She is also known for featuring with Stacey Dooley on the BBC Two genealogy series DNA Family Secrets which was recommissioned for a second series in 2021. King's research initially centred around genetics, genetic genealogy, forensics and surnames, and using aspects of human DNA such as the Y chromosome to track past human migrations. Her work has included tracing "the signal of the Viking migration to the north of England", resulting in her appearance in Michael Wood's The Great British Story – A People's History on BBC Two,[16] and in Michael Wood's Story of England. Her research themes involve combinations of molecular genetics with history, forensics, archaeology, geography, and genetic genealogy. It was this background that made her ideally placed to lead the genetic analysis involved during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England, confirming the identity of remains discovered underneath a Leicester car park through the use of DNA from living relatives. In March 2021 she presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary "Genetics and the longer arm of the law".


Size: 5073px × 3300px
Location: ExCeL London, One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London, E16 1XL
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -chromosomal, -paternity, 2022, ancient, archaeology, arm, association, audience, author, battlefields, bell, body, bones, britains, british, canadian-british, car, catching, cheltenham, communicator, criminals, dna, engagement, england., event, exhumation, family, fellow, festival, forensic, forensics, galton, genealogy., genetic, genetics, genetics., geography, great, haplotypes, history, honorary, identifying, iii, iii., institute, investigation, king, law, leicester, life, live, long, longer, lost, members, michael, migration, mind, mitochondrial, molecular, moscow, north, park, patterns, peoples, president, professor, public, reburial, relationship, research, richard, rob, science, scientific, scientist, secret, secrets, signal, speaker, stage, story, surnames, surnames., tracing, treasures, turi, university, viking, woods,