Sulaf Assi

Senior lecturer in forensic sciences, Bournemouth University
Dr Sulaf Assi is a lecturer in forensic sciences at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University. She obtained a Bachelor in Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Beirut Arab University (BAU), Beirut-Lebanon. Then she took on a job as a hospital pharmacist and pursued her MSc in Pharmaceutical Analysis at BAU. After this time, Sulaf has did her PhD in pharmaceutical analysis at the School of Pharmacy, University of London, London-UK under the supervision of Prof Tony Moffat and Dr Robert Watt. Her PhD work involved the identification of counterfeit medicines using near-infrared and Raman spectroscopy with chemometrics.

Once Sulaf finished her PhD, she undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in drug misuse and abuse at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Hertfordshire. She was working on monitoring, identification, analysis and dissemination of novel psychoactive substances from the Internet.

After that, Sulaf joined the teaching staff within forensic sciences at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth-UK. Since then, she has been involved in the teaching and research of different aspects of forensic sciences.

Sulaf has a broad range of research interests including: Counterfeit medicines, drug abuse and misuse, novel psychoactive substances, analytical (chromatographic and spectroscopic) techniques, handheld instruments and multivariate data analysis. In particular, her main area of research interest in the rapid and non-destructive identification of counterfeit medicines using handheld spectroscopic techniques and chemometrics. Her second area of research interest involves the rapid and accurate identification of drugs of abuse using multiple analytical techniques and multivariate data analysis. Sulaf’s research in particular aims at promoting patient safety and decrease drug related harm. Consequently, this benefits healthcare providers, policy makers and government agencies.