Real Life CSI I Help Solve Crimes

Rosalyn Rough (40) is a senior forensic scientist based in christchurch.

I always thought I was going to be a vet because I had such a great love and interest for animals. But throughout the process of not getting into vet school straightaway and doing some work experience, I decided I could just have animals for fun and not work with them. It was during that time in the late 1990s I actually read a magazine article in a doctor’s waiting room about a forensic scientist, and that inspired me to see that science could be used in a different way to help solve crimes, and answer questions about what happened and solve problems. At school, you didn’t get a lot of opportunities to hear about other jobs apart from mainstream ones. I’d never heard of a forensic scientist – and this was all before the TV show CSI was popular!

So, I got a science degree under my belt and then got into the masters programme of forensic science, which was very competitive!