Dr. Alfredo E. Walker is a registered Category A (Forensic) Pathologist of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service based within its Eastern Ontario Regional Forensic Pathology Unit at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus, a position he had held for the past 11 years. He holds an academic appointment of Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PALM) of the Faculty of Medicine. He is a Vice Chair and the Director of Education of the Department of PALM as well as the inaugural Program Director of the department’s PGY6 Residency (Fellowship) in Forensic Pathology training program which started on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Walker is a medical graduate of the School of Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He completed both residency Anatomical Pathology and Fellowship in Forensic Pathology in the United Kingdom.
Prior to his current position, Dr. Walker was a Consultant Forensic Pathologist in the Department of Forensic Pathology and Legal Medicine of the UK-government owned Forensic Science Service. He was on the Home Secretary’s Register of Forensic Pathologists in England and Wales for 4.5 years between 2006 and 2011 and earned the distinction of being the only person of Afro-Caribbean descent to achieve that status since the establishment of the Register in 1991.
He is also a Visiting Lecturer in Forensic Pathology on the Master’s in Forensic Sciences programme of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. He has continually supported the advancement of forensic medicine and science in the Caribbean region through the planning and delivery of a series of outreach training initiatives in many of its island states.
Over the years, he has mentored several students who have an interest in anatomical pathology and/or forensic pathology. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Pathology Club of the University of the West Indies (PCOUWI) in August 2020 and conceptualised and implemented Caribbean Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Student Initiative (CPALMSI) of the University of Ottawa to supports the activities of the PCOUWI. Dr. Walker also functions as a resource person for pathologists who perform medicolegal postmortem examinations in Belize, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr. Walker is a very active author who has written four chapters to date in forensic pathology textbooks and several articles in academic journals. He has been an invited speaker at many of the international conferences.
Internationally, Dr. Walker has provided expert medicolegal opinions on request for agencies in many jurisdictions. He is a Co-Chair of a 7-member international panel of experts that was appointed by the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Maryland, USA with responsibility for designing an audit of the Cause and Manner of Deaths determinations of all Deaths in Custody cases which were made during the tenure of Dr. David Fowler, the immediate former Chief Medical Examiner for Baltimore, as a result of flawed testimony delivered in the murder trial related to the death of George Floyd – https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/press/2021/090921.pdf.