Tamsin Kelly

Dr Tamsin Kelly completed a PhD in forensic toxicology at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 2004 before undertaking a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Baltimore (USA). Her post-doctoral research involved the development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) method for the identification and quantification of novel methamphetamine and amphetamine related markers in meconium.

Tamsin has had extensive experience in the development of analytical methods (such as LC-MS-MS and capillary electrophoresis (CE)) for the detection of drugs in various biological specimens, including plasma, urine, hair, and meconium. She was also a member of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Drug Testing team at the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (Pymble, NSW).

Following an appointment as Lecturer/Course Coordinator of Forensic and Analytical Chemistry at Curtin University of Technology (2006 – 2009), Tamsin relocated to University of Canberra within Forensic Studies and the National Centre for Forensic Studies. Tamsin teaches and/or convenes a number of units including Chemistry 1A (1516) and Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis (8780), and supervises several Honours and PhD students both at UC and UTS. In 2014 Tamsin was appointed Program Director (Science) with the Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics and was responsible for coordinating the teaching across various degree programs within Science.


She is an active member in the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society (ANZFSS; serving as an ACT Branch committee member 2012 - 2014), The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT) and Forensic & Clinical Toxicology Association (FACTA).

Research interests

• forensic toxicology
• application of analytical chemistry to forensic and allied health related analyses
• chemical education