Digital forensic practice
Dr Richard Matthews is Principal Forensic Expert and founder of RHEM Labs, based in Adelaide. His practice concerns the interpretation of digital evidence: Windows artefacts, digital traces, mobile-device evidence, file reconstruction, provenance, integrity and acquisition questions.
An examination may need to go beneath a vendor-generated report to the underlying records, data structures and system behaviour. The central distinction is between what a machine recorded and what that record can establish about a person’s actions or knowledge.
Selected expert-evidence experience
His professional record includes expert witness appearances in South Australian and Queensland criminal proceedings, reports in criminal and civil matters, and advice on digital evidence. Individual instructions remain subject to the specific question, suitable expertise, conflict checking and availability.
Selected experience includes acceptance as an expert in Windows operating-system analysis in a Queensland criminal trial in 2025.
Further professional experience is recorded in his curriculum vitae.
Technical foundation
His electrical and electronic engineering background provides a foundation across computer systems and architecture, data structures, digital systems, signal processing and cryptography. That systems perspective informs examination of how evidence is generated, retained, acquired and interpreted.
His doctorate is a specialist contribution within that broader practice. It investigated sensor pattern noise in CMOS image sensors, including dark current, lens effects and temperature bias. This work underpins part of the laboratory’s SPOT research; it does not define the full scope of his digital forensic expertise.
Research and professional contribution
- Technical Program Committee Co-chair, DFRWS APAC 2021.
- Academic service has included advisory-board work for Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation and peer review for digital-forensics journals, IEEE Access and the Australian Institute of Criminology.
- University of Adelaide research has included digital forensics, 3D imaging, cyber intelligence and investigative systems; teaching and supervision have included digital forensics and computer systems.
- Co-author of the NATO CCDCOE cyber-intelligence report, produced under the RHEM Labs name before incorporation.
- Author of Bits, bias, and Blackstone and other peer-reviewed publications.
The professional CV provides a full record of appointments, experience and publications.
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Adelaide, 2017–2019. Thesis: Towards a unified theory of sensor pattern noise: An analysis of dark current, lens effects and temperature bias in CMOS image sensors.
- Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, University of Adelaide, 2020–2023.
- Bachelor of Engineering with Honours (Electrical and Electronic), University of Adelaide, 2008–2015.
Professional CV and instructions
Download the Curriculum Vitae of Dr Richard Matthews (PDF).
Forensic instructions are accepted through legal practitioners and professional organisations. Discuss the forensic question and deadline before transferring substantive material.