The psychology-law concentration includes a distinguished group of faculty with research interests in criminal confessions, deception detection, eyewitness identification, plea bargaining, expert opinion evidence, forensic psychology, forensic science, memory, legal decision-making, and police interviewing and interrogation. The group comprises faculty members from cognitive psychology (Dr. Jason Chan, Dr. Chris Meissner, Dr. Andrew Smith, Dr. Miko Wilford) and social psychology (Dr. Zlatan Krizan, Dr. Tess Neal). Applicants interested in working with faculty in the psychology-law concentration should apply to either the Ph.D. program in cognitive psychology or the Ph.D. program in social psychology. The psychology-law concentration is home to the Stavish Fund for Excellence in Psychology and Law that provides scholarships and fellowships to psychology-law graduate students. Please visit the psychology admissions page for information about applying to the psychology-law concentration in psychology. For questions, please contact Kristine Vicker at psychadm@iastate.edu or call 515-294-1742.
Faculty:
Jason C.K. Chan
Professor
False memory and eyewitness memory
Zlatan Krizan
Professor
Sleep and alertness, provision and collection of human intelligence
Christian A. Meissner
Professor
Interrogation, deception, cross-race identification
Tess Neal
Associate Professor
Expert reasoning and judgment, quality of expert testimony, forensic psychology, public policy
Andrew Smith
Associate Professor
Eyewitness and recognition memory, decision-making, signal detection theory
Miko Wilford
Associate Professor
Legal decision-making, plea bargaining, eyewitness identification
Post-doc:
Liz Elliott
Ph.D., Ontario Tech
Detecting deception; investigative interviewing
Students:
- 2021-2022: Stavish Graduate Award to Rachel O’Donnell
- 2021-2022: Stavish Graduate Fellowship to Nydia Ayala and Alex Goldstein
- 2020-2021: Stavish Graduate Awards to Nydia Ayala and Rachel O’Donnell
Career Placement of Recent Graduates:
- Nydia Ayala (2024, Ph.D.) – Assistant professor at Washington and Lee University
- Ryan Ditchfield (2021, Ph.D.) – Assistant professor at California State Fresno
- Rachel Dianiska (2020, Ph.D.) – Postdoctoral fellow at University of California Irvine
- Krista Manley (2019, Ph.D.) -User experience researcher at Procore
- Dominick Atkinson (2019, Ph.D.) – Postdoctoral fellow at University of Idaho
- Sara Davis (2018, Ph.D.) – Assistant professor at University of North Florida