Dr Rhonda Wheate
Senior Knowledge Exchange Fellow
Law
Personal statement
Loving both reading and calculations, I studied Science (University Medal for chemistry, Hons Class I) and Law (Hons Class I) at university in Australia. This showed me how science and law can be combined to deliver better access to justice for defendants, victims, jurors and society. All of my subsequent work, as an academic and in practice, has been about pursuing better access to justice, beginning with the role of Associate to Chief Justice T. Higgins in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.
Then, under the supervision of Professor Eric Magnusson (Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales) and Professor James Robertson (Head, Australian Federal Police Forensic Services), my PhD research asked: How well do real juries in criminal trials comprehend scientific evidence? (The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is 'not very well'.) As well as asking real jurors, I also studied mock jurors, and working with the National Institute of Forensic Science, I interviewed forensic scientists from all seven states and territories of Australia for this research, and was awarded the Ria de Groot Prize for best female postgraduate for my PhD.
My later work in Australia and the UK has focused on how forensic science gets turned into expert evidence in the law courts. I study how expert evidence is used by scientists, judges and lawyers and what effect this has on access to justice for the prosecution, defence, jurors and society.
As well as working as an academic at universities in the UK and Australia, doing knowledge exchange activities, research and teaching, I have worked as a scientific and legal analyst at The Forensic Institute and I am the Impact Lead for the Scottish Institute for Policing Research. My current research with Police Scotland, Hemat Gryffe Women's Aid and others is examining how to improve access to justice for victims of domestic abuse and honour-based violence.
At the University of Strathclyde, I have the privilege of working with the Strathclyde Law Clinic and Law School to provide access to justice for some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and Clinical Legal Education to our students.
I deliver Continuing Professional Development courses and consultancy to legal practitioners, forensic scientists, expert witnesses and judges; as well as teaching criminal law, the law of evidence, and ethics and justice; and supervising Honours, Masters and PhD students in these areas.
Prize And Awards
- Nominee - Strathclyde Students Union Teaching Award 2021
- Recipient
- 2021
- Ria de Groot Award for Best Female Graduate
- Recipient
- 2007
Publications
- Working with students as partners in a social justice-oriented law clinic : practice and legacy
- Melville Gillian, Bolt Kathleen, Wheate Rhonda
- Edinburgh Law Review Vol 30, pp. 94-100 (2026)
- https://doi.org/10.3366/elr.2026.1006
- Crime scene to courtroom : evaluating EO as forensic evidence in criminal justice
- Rapach Seonaid, Wheate Rhonda, Riccardi Annalisa
- IAF Earth Observation Symposium 76th International Astronautical Congress, pp. 298-302 (2026)
- https://doi.org/10.52202/083081-0036
- Crime scene to courtroom : Evaluating Earth observation data as forensic evidence in criminal justice
- Rapach Seonaid, Wheate Rhonda, Riccardi Annalisa
- 76th International Astronautical Congress (2025)
- Integrating AI in legal analysis of satellite imagery : a focused approach using transformer models to guide classification
- Rapach Seonaid, Riccardi Annalisa, Wheate Rhonda
- Living Planet Symposium 2025 (2025)
- Earth Observation technology's alignment with OHCHR indicators for strengthening human rights breach investigations and adjudication
- Rapach Seonaid, Riccardi Annalisa, Wheate Rhonda
- Science and Justice Vol 64, pp. 710-727 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2024.09.006
- Navigating legal challenges in earth observation : a case study of Lake Ziway
- Rapach Seonaid, Riccardi Annalisa, Wheate Rhonda, Nemeth Viktoria, Samuel Esayas
- 2024 IEEE International Humanitarian Technologies Conference (IHTC) IEEE International Humanitarian Technology Conference 2024 IEEE International Humanitarian Technologies Conference (2024)
Professional Activities
- Working in partnership: From Classroom to Courtroom :Workshop Association of Law Teachers Conference April 2025
- Participant
- 11/4/2025
- BBC Scotland Radio Sunday Morning Interview: George Floyd & Jury Selection
- Interviewee
- 14/2/2021
- Socio-Legal Studies Association (External organisation)
- Member
- 2021
- Law and Society Association (External organisation)
- Member
- 2021
- Network for the Public Communication of Science and Technology (External organisation)
- Member
- 2021
- Society of Legal Scholars Annual conference 2020
- Speaker
- 2/9/2020
Projects
- EO4HR: Earth Observation for Human Rights
- Riccardi, Annalisa (Principal Investigator) Wheate, Rhonda (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2026
- Honour-Based Abuse in Scotland: Evidence and pathways to strengthen protection for victims
- Wheate, Rhonda (Principal Investigator) McLaughlin, Elaine (Co-investigator) McGowan, Mhairi (Co-investigator) Faulds, Samantha (Co-investigator) Burton, Allan (Co-investigator)
- Funded (£17,918) by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (£16,418), Strathclyde Law School (£1,000) and Hemat Gryffe Women's Aid (£500). A series of multi-agency, multi-disciplinary events providing a forum for the analysis of current legal and policy frameworks in Scotland concerning Honour Based Abuse (HBA).
The project and events will consider the protection provided to victims of gender-based HBA through the law and policing. The project will illuminate and evaluate the effect of the law and policing on women who are impacted by the intersecting factors of gender, ethnicity, family networks, linguistic, financial, educational, immigration and other barriers in the face of HBA, creating recommendations for law reform, policy reform, and an animation to be played by Police Scotland in airport and immigration venues in relation to HBA. - 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2022
- Honour-Based Abuse in Scotland: Giving Women a Voice
- Wheate, Rhonda (Principal Investigator) McLaughlin, Elaine (Co-investigator) McGowan, Mhairi (Co-investigator) Faulds, Samantha (Co-investigator) Burton, Allan (Co-investigator)
- £5000 HaSS Knowledge Exchange Small Grant to support the translation of high-quality research into knowledge exchange activities and outputs, and develop research networks and future research applications from existing knowledge exchange projects.
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2022
- Literature Review of the sentencing of cases involving domestic abuse
- Wheate, Rhonda (Principal Investigator)
- Report for the Scottish Sentencing Council, in collaboration with Glasgow University Law School (£8,175.44)
- 26-Jan-2021 - 30-Jan-2022
- Goffman meets Popper in the Criminal Courts
- Wheate, Rhonda (Principal Investigator)
- HaSS COVID-19 Student Project Fund awarded to supervise a research assistant student (Calum Harris) for 10 hours research on Erving Goffman's "Frame Analysis" and Karl Popper's "Scientific Method", building a multi-disciplinary literature database to interrogate why sub-standard scientific evidence (forensic science) is permitted in criminal trials in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and NZ.
- 19-Jan-2020 - 19-Jan-2021
- Thai Judiciary Visit 2019
- Wheate, Rhonda (Principal Investigator)
- I provided a seminar in Criminal Law and Jury Trials to 35 senior members of the Thai judiciary, who were visiting Strathclyde for an academic programme on Scots Law.
- 14-Jan-2019 - 27-Jan-2019
Contact
Dr
Rhonda
Wheate
Senior Knowledge Exchange Fellow
Law
Email: r.wheate@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 4347