Deputy Director (9th Class Administrative Officer) of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Justice, since 2003, and was promoted to Director (10th Class Administrative Officer) by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej in 2008. Pornthip's four-year term as CIFS Director expired in April 2012, and her term was extended for one more year. However, Yingluck Shinawatra's Council of Ministers removed her from the office in May 2013. Pornthip was appointed Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice. Her removal was effective immediately and without any advance notice, while Pornthip was carrying out her official functions in the People's Republic of China. Pornthip felt her removal was motivated by politics, since some politicians might have been upset with her work. A number of experts agreed with her, citing Pornthip's conflicts with the Royal Thai Police, which had caused her and her team to be barred from working in central Thailand and being sent to work in the south instead. Following the June 2013 murder of Akeyuth Anchanbutr, an outspoken critic of Yingluck's government, Pornthip was asked by the public to examine the case. However, she said she no longer had any authority to deal with such cases. Asked about her duties as Inspector General, she said they consisted of "only reviewing official papers". Career Pornthip first attracted widespread media attention when she investigated the murder of Jenjira Ploy-angunsri in 1998. She rapidly became a celebrity pathologist and published a memoir, Seub Jaak Sop ("Investigating Corpses"). After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Pornthip supervised the effort to identify the tsunami victims in the Phang Nga region. She and her team were widely praised for their hard work and dedication, but on 13 January 2005 Police General Nopadol Somboonsab complained that the police's identification centre in Phuket should have charge of all identification operations. Pornthip attributed the intervention to Nopadol's supposed personal vendetta against her. Nopadol was ultimately successful, and the Phang Nga operation was closed down on 3 February 2005. Her life story and her work in Phang Nga were documented in the 2004 National Geographic documentary Crime Scene Bangkok. In June 2009, she was one of the pathologists investigating the death of actor David Carradine. In October 2009, she concluded that Malaysian Democratic Action Party employee Teoh Beng Hock, who had been detained by the Malaysian federal Government's Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had an 80% probability of having been being murdered. In