Dr. Lorna Ferguson is a Banting Postdoctoral Researcher at Memorial University and the Founder of the Missing Persons Research Hub. She is an award-winning criminologist who has dedicated over ten years to studying crime and criminal justice and working in this field.

Lorna received her PhD and MA in Sociology and BA Honour Specialization in Criminology from Western University. Previously, she was the Director of Operations for the Canadian Society of Evidence-Based Policing but stepped away to develop the Missing Persons Research Hub. She formerly worked for the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) in Parole and Community Corrections.

She has worked in several research positions on different topics with researchers from Canada, the US, Australia, and the UK. Her research interests pertain to policing and developing evidence-based approaches to policing and crime prevention, including studying firearms, crime concentration, police data, cybercrime, police-community interactions, and police reform. Her specialization is police responses to missing person cases. This research aims to fill in knowledge gaps on police work in this area. It focuses on investigating 'what works,' 'what doesn't work,' and 'what we still don't know' in terms of most effectively and efficiently searching for and investigating missing persons. She has educated, trained, and partnered with over forty police services and several individual police officers to enhance police practices and policies and officer knowledge on missing persons. With her research, outreach, and the Missing Persons Research Hub, her ultimate goals are improving scholarship in this field and preventing and reducing missing persons.

Lorna's research has been published in peer-reviewed journals in her field and has been the subject of many local, national, and international presentations. Her recent research has appeared in Criminology & Criminal Justice, Crime and Delinquency, Policing & Society, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Policing: An International Journal, and Deviant Behavior. She has written three books, e.g., The Wicked Problems of Police Reform in Canada with Routledge, and Police Search and Rescue Response to Lost and Missing Persons in Canada, with Springer. You will find Lorna engaging in science communication, knowledge translation, and public engagement related to her work/research through various means, including open-access publications, research blogs, media talks, op-eds, podcasts, and many others. Open and accessible science are critical components of her research programme.