Rolando Carol
I started in the Legal Psychology Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2007. My general research interests are investigative interviewing and eyewitness memory. More specifically, I am interested in errors in eyewitness memory: self-generated errors and errors resulting from external influences. I am also interested in the vulnerabilities and strengths of child eyewitnesses’ memories. I enjoy short walks on the beach and I do not believe in astrology.

Jenna Kieckhaefer

I started in the legal psych PhD program Fall 2008.  I received my B.A.s in Psychology and Social Behavior, and Criminology, Law and Society (2008) from the University of California, Irvine.  While in college I completed two applied internships in the Washington, D.C. area - one with Interpol and the other with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. My research interests include the effects of building rapport with eyewitnesses, memory conformity and detecting deception.

Pamela Pimentel

Pamela Pimentel completed her undergraduate training at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She obtained her Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and Sciences and a minor in Sociology in 2009. In previous research, she has explored adolescents' involvement with the justice system. Currently, she studies developmental, situational, and dispositional factors in adolescent interviewing.

Jillian Rowback Rivard
I received my B.A. in Psychology from Ithaca College (2003), my M.A. in Forensic Psychology from Roger Williams University (2009) and entered the Legal Psychology program at FIU in the fall of 2009. I have worked as a Forensic Interviewer for a Children's Advocacy Center, conducting interviews with child victims of sexual and physical abuse for police investigations, which has fueled my current research interest in investigative interviewing. My research in the Ilab evaluates the effectiveness of investigative interviewing techniques and examines forensic interviewers' use and perceptions of various techniques in the field. My other general interests include deception detection and wrongful convictions.
 

Daniella Villalba
 I am a first year graduate student in the Legal Psychology Ph.D Program at Florida International University. My main research interest is eyewitness memory. Currently, I am working on studies that look at the circumstances in which memory conformity occurs. I am also interested in how alcohol affects people's memory for an event.

Shari Schwartz

I received my B.S. in Psychology from the University of Central Florida and enrolled in the FIU Legal Psychology program in August 2007. My research interests are applied in nature and center on the social/cognitive psychological factors that influence judges', attorneys', jurors', and eyewitness legal decision making. My current dissertation research is on judicial decision making within the context of admissibility decisions regarding psychology expert witness testimony.

 

Former Graduate Students

Jacqueline R. Evans, Ph.D

My research interests are related to issues at the intersection of law and behavioral science. I have examined the effect of alcohol intoxication on eyewitness memory, and how legal decision makers (including jurors, investigators and attorneys) evaluate evidence provided by intoxicated individuals. I have also conducted studies examining how witnesses are able to use metacognition to maintain high accuracy rates, and how jurors use evidence of metacognition to evaluate witness testimony. More recently I have become interested in interrogation techniques and the deception of deception in interrogation settings.

In 2009 I received an Intelligence Community Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, which provides 2 years of support. The project is entitled: Scientific Development of a Psychologically-Based Credibility Assessment Tool

Amy Hyman Gregory Ph.D

Research Interests: Investigative interviewing practices, police interviewing techniques, eyewitness/child witness memory, expert witness testimony, and decision-making in criminal and civil cases

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Jon P. Vallano, Ph.D

I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, where I conduct research on jury decision-making, investigative interviewing, and eyewitness identification. In addition to my scholarly interests, I also serve as a trial consultant for attorneys by helping them prepare cases for trial. At Pitt-Greensburg, I teach the following courses: Legal Psychology, Introduction to Psychology, Social Psychology, and Research Methods.

Marianna Carlucci

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