Welcome
Dr. Meiklejohn joined NC State as an Associate Professor in January of 2018, as a Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program Cluster hire in Forensics. Her doctoral and postdoctoral training was centered in a variety of disciplines including molecular biology, entomology, taxonomy, systematics, evolutionary biology, and human and non-human forensic DNA analysis. She completed her doctoral research in the laboratories of Prof. James Wallman and Prof. Mark Dowton at the University of Wollongong (Australia) for which she 1) evaluated DNA barcoding for the species level identification of forensically important Australian flesh flies, 2) revised the taxonomic literature and generated a LUCID key for the Australian Sarcophaga, and 3) inferred the phylogenetic relationships among the Australian Sarcophagidae using molecular and morphological data.
Dr. Meiklejohn’s first PostDoctoral position at the University of Florida focused on establishing the utility of ultraconserved elements for resolving rapid radiations and testing analytical approaches to address conflicting phylogenetic signal within the mitochondrial genome of galliform birds. Prior to joining NC State, she was most recently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Counterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Unit of the FBI Laboratory, in Quantico, VA (sponsored by ORISE). In this position, she directed several research and development projects in DNA forensics which included: 1) testing and evaluating human DNA assays developed for massively parallel sequencing (MPS) platforms, 2) improving the recovery of mitochondrial DNA from hair without roots, 3) assessing the utility of a range of polymerases for obtaining mitochondrial amplicons from challenging samples, 4) developing a molecular protocol to identify plant and insect materials associated with soil, and 5) assessing the reliability and accuracy of public sequence databases for the identification of unknown biological materials. Since starting her PhD in 2009, she has published manuscripts in forensic, phylogenetic, entomology, taxonomy and systematics journals.
Follow the Meiklejohn Lab on Twitter @DrKAMeiklejohn
Affiliations
- Member of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society
- Member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- Member of the Society for Wildlife Forensic Science
- Member of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science Wildlife Forensics Subcommittee
Certifications
- B. of Biotechnology Advanced (Hons Class 1), U of Wollongong (2008)
- Ph.D., U of Wollongong (2012)
- Postdoctoral Associate, U of Florida (2013)
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Federal Bureau of Investigation (2017)