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Vienna C. Lam
Areas of interest
Forensic anthropology; Aquatic decomposition (taphonomy); Water detection, rescue, and recovery; Medicolegal death investigations; Evidence admissibility; Environmental Criminology; Ethics; Drowning prevention
Biography
Vienna Lam is an aquatic death researcher, SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Doctoral Candidate (ABD), university sessional instructor, and Senior Crime Analyst (Port Moody), with 10+ years of combined leadership experience as a Manager for the SFU Centre for Forensic Research Entomology Lab and SFU South Pacific Archaeology Lab. Her research focuses on aquatic deaths, including geospatial and EMS access for risk assessments, paediatric water-based deaths, guardianship and supervision, water safety awareness, and aquatic body decomposition from a medicolegal and forensic anthropological perspective. When she's not working as an analyst or conducting research, you can find her scuba diving, organizing youth outreach, or working with non-profits to promote equitable access to STEM education.
91ÅÝܽ exceptionally diverse and offers graduate students many opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary research. If you are interested in aquatic death research or ethics, please don't hesitate to reach out
Vienna Lam
Projects
Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
With the help of SFU's School of Criminology, Mitacs, and P.E.O., Vienna was able to spend a few months over the past few years at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (), in Melbourne, Australia. There, she screened and created one of the first aquatic death databases that integrate police, coroner, autopsy records, and forensic findings, from which she is currently conducting several studies on the effects of postmortem submergence on human decomposition. Her novel approach to understanding the effects of moderating factors has led to Vienna winning the top prize from the Forensic Science Foundation (FSF) and American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) to present her preliminary findings at the triennial International Association of Forensic Sciences (IAFS) meeting in Sydney, 2023 ().
Royal Canadian Lifesaving Society
As a researcher and academic member of the Royal Canadian Lifesaving Society, Vienna has created Canada's first database on all accidental drowning fatalities that integrates geospatial data. From this, she is conducting research to promote better health outcomes among vulnerable populations, with particular focus on those living in rural and remote areas with limited emergency medical services access. By applying Environmental Criminology to mortality studies, she was able to model water safety risks across demographic, geographic, and situational contexts, including one study that focuses specifically on paediatric water-related deaths. Preliminary findings of this work have since been presented to global practitioners and policy makers at the World Conference on Drowning Prevention (2023), among other technical reports.
Impact of COVID-19 on medicolegal death investigations
During the pandemic, Vienna monitored the impact of COVID-19 on medicolegal death investigations. She began interviewing death investigators from the hardest hit locations, including pathologists and death investigators from Italy, United Kingdom, and several cities across US and Canada. She collected stories about their challenges and strategies deployed, to compile all the operational learnings and experiences during the earliest stages of the pandemic. This research has since been published () and shared alongside other allied health units and Dr. Bonnie Henry during the .
Vienna's work can be found in various peer-reviewed journals, including:
- Medicine, Science and the Law
- Forensic and Legal Medicine
- Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology
Publications
Awards
With 8 peer-reviewed publications, 4 manuscripts submitted, and seven forthcoming publications, Vienna has an anticipated 19 publications (many as first author) from her graduate career. This is in addition to 23 conference presentations and a dozen technical reports that have been prepared for various government and major non-profit research consortiums.
This unprecedented volume of scholarship has resulted in 50+ major awards and research grants, including national and international distinctions such as being the top-scoring recipient Forensic Science Foundation and CRC Press AAFS Student Travel Award and book prize (2019), top award for the International Association of Forensic Sciences AAFS-FSF Award (2023), four Canadian Society for Forensic Science Education Awards, and the P.E.O. International Scholar Award. Her early returns as a graduate student have also led her to secure a Provost Prize of Distinction (2018 – 2021) and the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2018 – 2021) for ranking 8th in Canada for her discipline.
In 2019, she was one of ten doctoral students President Dr. Joy Johnson and SFU DGS selected to represent SFU at the International Student Research Forum in Odense, Denmark. There, her team competed and were finalists in the ISRF Danish Life and Medical Sciences hackathon. She has continued to serve as an SFU Ambassador through several mentorship programs around the university, and recently finished 6+ years of service as a senator on the SFU Research Ethics Board.