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Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Law School Professor

July 7, 2011 By Comments

Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Law School Professor

Dr. Jennifer K. Robbennolt, Associate Professor of Law, University of Missouri

I am an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law and a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution. Before accepting my current position, I earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in social psychology in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Law/Psychology Program, clerked for a state supreme court judge, and spent two years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Psychology at Princeton University. As a psychologist working on research topics that implicate both psychological and legal questions, I have had the opportunity to explore areas as diverse as how citizens and judges determine punitive damages and the implications of these findings for tort reform, the role of empirical research in informing the law of intestacy, the role of the media in influencing the public’s perceptions of the legal system as well as the decisions of various players in the system, and the role of apologies in the resolution of disputes.

The academic environment of a law school is both similar to and different from that of a department of psychology. While psychologists within departments of psychology may have primary interests in diverse areas of psychology, they have in common both a shared interest in the study of psychology and a shared commitment to the use of scientific methodologies to explore their questions of interest. In a law school, faculty members have primary interests in diverse areas of the law (ranging from constitutional law to the law of property or contracts, to criminal law and so on), and more diverse methodological approaches, but have a common interest in understanding, commenting on, and improving the law.

That there are fewer empirical researchers in a law school than in a psychology department is both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity. There are fewer natural opportunities for detailed discussion of research design or statistics. Instead, there is a wealth of practical experience that grounds one’s research and stimulates one’s ideas about areas of the law that are ripe for the insights of psychology, but that have been relatively neglected by psychologists. Moreover, the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange abound – law faculty may have backgrounds in fields such as economics, sociology, journalism, political science, history, and the physical sciences. Thus, there are exciting possibilities for bringing psychology to areas of the law that have been less frequently examined by psychologists.

Another difference is that law faculty are less likely to work directly with graduate students in psychology, though may still sit on thesis committees. Instead, I am able to introduce psychological science to large groups of future attorneys.

It takes some effort to retain an identity as a psychologist when one’s academic home is a law school. A desire to maintain a connection to psychology has implications for decisions about how to frame research questions, where to publish the results, and how to keep current with developments in psychology as well as law. While the challenges are plentiful, the opportunities make meeting those challenges worthwhile.

Dr. Jeffrey Rachlinski, Professor of Law, Cornell University

Like most kids in the United States, I was obliged in junior high school to undertake a personality inventory designed to identify sensible career choices. The results of the inventory produced “lawyer” and “psychologist” as the careers to which I was best suited. Upon entering college at the Johns Hopkins University, I majored in psychology, hoping to put off deciding between the two. In my sophomore year, I was fortunate enough to enroll in a course in law and psychology taught by Donald Bersoff, then the director of the joint program in law and psychology at the University of Maryland law school and the psychology department at Johns Hopkins. Upon being exposed to Professor Bersoff’s seamless synthesis of the two disciplines, I resolved never to truly make a choice.

I applied to several programs in law and psychology offered in the late 1980′s and eventually settled on Stanford. The small program had the advantage of having an advisor–David Rosenhan–who was appointed in both the law school and the psychology department. Unknown to me when I enrolled, it also had the advantage of having two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Lee Ross, whose work was beginning to have a big impact on the discipline of law.

I spent graduate school balancing time in the law school with research in the psychology department. The balance was not always successful. Maintaining research in the psychology department sometimes left me little time to prepare law school classes, and preparing law school classes often meant that research had to be put off.

In my law school classes, I was stuck by the pervasive influence of economics on law. Rational choice theory, rather than psychology, seemed to be legal scholars’ principal model of how people think. At the same time I was discovering the role of economics in law, I encountered Tversky’s extensive critiques of economics. Bringing some of the psychological research on judgment and choice to law would also enable law and psychology to branch out a bit beyond traditional areas of scholarship. The potential to bring psychology’s thinking to law through the critique of economics has become my work. My dissertation, for example, restructured a widely cited economic model of litigation developed by economists with Tversky and Kahneman’s Prospect Theory.

Upon completing my law degree, I entered private practice while completing the work for my dissertation. This lasted only a brief time, however, as I was fortunate enough to find a law school with a strong and growing interest in social science–Cornell. Although I have taught as a visiting scholar at four other law schools since then (Chicago, Penn, Virginia, Yale), I have remained at Cornell for the past ten years. I continue to conduct research and write on the application of the cognitive psychology of judgment and choice to areas of law that have previously treated economics as the only relevant social science. These include securities regulation, environmental law, products liability, corporate governance, and administrative law.

As far as advice, I recommend that any budding law-and-psychology scholar read Michael Saks’ article, “The Law does not live by eyewitness testimony alone” (Law and Human Behavior, vol. 10, pp. 279-80, 1986). Forensic psychology, jury research, and eyewitness identification are laudable subjects– but there is a whole world of unexplored opportunities for a law-and-psychology scholar willing to reach beyond them.

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , , ,

Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor

July 5, 2011 By Comments

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/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/careerspotlight.jpg” alt=”" width=”260″ height=”194″ />Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor

Dr. N. Dickon Reppucci, Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia

My first job was as an Assistant Professor at Yale University (1968-1973), where I was hired by Seymour Sarason to co-teach a seminar in community psychology, a newly developing interdisciplinary area, and to pursue my intervention interests in community settings. My training had been in developmental and clinical psychology, with expertise in behavioral approaches to mental health problems of adolescents and an understanding of the importance of the longitudinal study of development (a la my dissertation adviser, Jerome Kagan). However, Seymour nurtured my identity as a clinical/community psychologist with the emphasis on community. He encouraged me to pursue research and action focused on changing human service organizations, especially public elementary schools and correctional facilities for adolescent offenders, and to challenge prevailing myths, e.g., in a paper entitled, The social psychology of behavior modification, Terry Saunders and I attempted to quiet the fears of a behavioral takeover of the helping professions. In 1973, I was promoted to an Associate Professor, whose professional identity was strongly community/prevention. One major outcome of those years was the realization that interventions with juveniles constituted much more than individual or family therapy, and could be best served by adopting an ecological theoretical framework. Moreover, focus needed to be given to the helping professionals themselves and to the larger societal context that so influenced the developing child.

In 1976, I became Professor of Psychology and Director (1976-1980) of a newly developing Program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Virginia, which I believed could be developed to enhance these perspectives. I also initiated a small, free standing Community Psychology program that allowed students to pursue similar goals but without extensive clinical training in individual psychology. I have directed this Community Psychology program for 28 years, and it has remained focused on these goals and the belief that to be an effective advocate for youth entails using scientific psychology to inform public policy. As with most programs, the research content has varied with faculty interest. Over the past 28 years, several of my Virginia colleagues have shared my interest in prevention and development, but my specific concern has been to integrate psychological research and theory in a manner that can inform the law about development and interventions with children. To pursue these aims, I have developed graduate and undergraduate courses on “Children and the Law” and have collaborated with graduate students in research and action projects related to child maltreatment, juvenile justice, child custody and adolescent decision-making in legal contexts. Because our research has taken genuine cognizance of legal issues, it has been used to inform both the law and public policy. I, of necessity, have become more knowledgeable about the law and have devoted my career to mentoring community and clinical graduate students with similar interests. Many of these students have gone on to very successful careers in academic and governmental institutions and I am very proud of their continuing accomplishments.

Dr. Jennifer Woolard, Associate Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University

My interest in law and policy stemmed from internship and class experiences as a psychology and sociology major at the University of Virginia. Working in a victim-witness assistance program and domestic violence shelter helped me understand that systems affect individuals and families in important ways I wanted to understand further. Unsure whether law school or graduate school was the best route after two years in the workforce, my choice became clear when I quickly sent in the graduate school application but couldn’t make it to the mailbox with the law school application.

With its emphasis on an ecological systems approach to prevention, law, and social policy affecting children and families, the University of Virginia community psychology program was a terrific match. In retrospect, several choices and experiences in graduate school prepared me well for my current work. First, I took advantage of the skill and expertise of teachers and mentors in my own community area as well as several other areas, including developmental and quantitative psychology, and faculty at the law school interested in social science. In particular, Dick Reppucci (psychology) and Elizabeth Scott (law) modeled the teacher-scholar approach to socially relevant issues. Advanced training in methodology and statistical analysis has been incredibly helpful. Conducting interdisciplinary work while in graduate school gave me the experiences, both uplifting and frustrating, that I needed once I became a faculty member in an interdisciplinary academic unit. Second, I sought out several different field placements as part of my work, including stints as a staff member for the state Office of Prevention Services and the state legislative Commission on Family Violence Prevention, and as a consultant to statewide domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy groups. I took my first steps learning the lingo and attempting to translate research into policy and practice, giving me a head start for later work.

I took a position as an assistant professor in the Center for Studies in Criminology and Law at the University of Florida. As one of two psychologists, my colleagues included sociologists, historians, social ecologists and lawyers, among others. My interests in adolescent development and juvenile justice were fostered by collaborations with colleagues within the Center as well as those in the law school and several other schools on Florida’s large campus. I established connections to local schools, justice system facilities and statewide organizations as my research program developed. After several years I left the Center to join the faculty of Georgetown University in the Psychology Department, which initiated a graduate program in Human Development and Public Policy. The Washington, DC area has tremendous opportunities for research that spans psychology, law and public policy and I have continued the interdisciplinary approach by collaborating with colleagues in law, health sciences, and other departments as well as with several psychology faculty members.

My suggestion to students with interests that span social science and policy is to think broadly about your educational experiences, your field work outside the academy, and your options when searching for academic positions. Consider the pros and cons of traditional disciplinary departments, which can be fertile places to conduct such work, but don’t limit yourself. Be open to interdisciplinary centers, institutes, and other options. Use practical experiences in the field, including working on project teams, to hone your research skills and your knowledge of what policymakers, practitioners, and families face in their daily lives. You probably won’t become an expert, but the experience and appreciation will inform your work and enhance your credibility as you partner with those groups throughout your career.

The academic career has been (and will continue to be, I’m sure) hard but rewarding work. The flexibility and autonomy that comes with teaching and research has matched well for me and given me opportunities to work with academics, professionals, and families from a variety of backgrounds and interests on issues important to me.

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , ,

Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor

July 3, 2011 By Comments

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/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/careerspotlight.jpg” alt=”" width=”260″ height=”194″ />Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these 10 biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor

 

Dr. Christian A. Meissner, Assistant Professor of Legal Psychology, Florida International University

I’m not sure that you actually choose a career – rather, I think it is probably more likely to find you. Ever since I was a child I had wanted to be a lawyer, and eventually a judge. My family had a rather extensive history in the legal system, from local police officers to federal agents and state attorneys. As a result, I was fascinated with the law and as long as I could remember I wanted to be a part of it. With this in mind, I headed to Pfeiffer University to pursue a degree that would prepare me for law school. I began as a criminal justice major, then changed to sociology before finally settling in the psychology department. I wasn’t able to explain it, but something about psychology’s approach to studying the human mind, particularly aspects of memory and decision-making, captivated my attention and interest. At the same time I decided upon psychology, I was pulled into the study of epistemology, phenomenology, and various other philosophical writings on human thought, intelligence, and decision-making. It seemed as though my studies were beginning to focus, but my own goals were still targeted on law school. Then along came that one event that seemingly set me in the right direction – I had a wonderful discussion with a new faculty member in the psychology department, Dr. Susan Kirkendol, who after hearing of my interests in law school suggested that she might offer a seminar in Psychology & Law. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this seminar would shape my career goals and send me to graduate school at Florida State University to study eyewitness memory and juror decision-making with Dr. Jack Brigham.

When you find your passion in life, you will know it, and graduate school at FSU was that type of experience for me. I thrived primarily because I absolutely loved what I was doing, from learning the details of cognitive and social processes in the classroom to conducting my own research, writing-up the results, and presenting them at conferences. In the end, I knew that I wanted a career in academia – I wanted to continue teaching in the classroom and conducting research that would have some practical benefit to society. I arrived at my current position (Assistant Professor of Legal Psychology at Florida International University) through a rather competitive application process, as academic faculty positions are not easy to obtain and I was but one among many excellent and qualified candidates. Of the fifteen or so positions that I had applied for, FIU was at the top of my list because it was one of the premiere programs in the field of Psychology and Law, and it would permit me to work with graduate students that would be most directly interested in my area of research. Today I supervise a handful of wonderful graduate students, and have had the wonderful pleasure of graduating several at the doctoral level. My research focuses on understanding the cognitive and social processes that govern eyewitness identification and juror decision- making, and I have recently begun conducting research on the psychology of interrogations and confessions. In addition to teaching and conducting research, I also provide consultation to attorneys and law enforcement groups on the proper conduct of lineups and interrogations, and I have also provided expert testimony to the court on the issues. In the end, academia was the most wonderful profession I could have selected, although I suppose I should be happy that it selected me.

Dr. Kathy Pezdek, Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University

I’m lucky because I have always had opportunities to do things that I really enjoy. It has been my experience, however, that good luck is more likely to come your way if you have worked hard to prepare for it. I received a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was there that I began studying “visual memory.” I was interested in what characteristics of a visual stimulus are retained in memory when the stimulus is “remembered,” and the vulnerabilities of these memories to suggestive influences. This has continued to be the focus of my research throughout my career.

I am a researcher because I like doing research. The study of memory is inherently interesting to me and, as the daughter of an electrical engineer, I find the specificity of cognitive research methods appealing. But I am also a social being and much prefer working in a group than alone. This is why I am well-suited for an academic career. I have spent most of my adulthood as a Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, where I have directed the graduate program in Applied Cognitive Psychology. At any point in time I have a handful of studies in progress and a team of graduate students helping me with each of these. As far as I am concerned, any success I have achieved has been because of the graduate students I have had the pleasure of working with. So my academic job is not just days of teaching large classes of students. I do teach, and love that part of my work. But the most rewarding teaching that I do is really outside of the classroom in a research context, and I wouldn’t give this up for anything.

For me, one of the draws of Cognitive Psychology has always been the fact that the work has so many possible applications to real world issues. The application that most naturally fits my research on visual memory has been the field of eyewitness memory. After all, understanding what characteristics of a visual stimulus – such as a perpetrator’s face – are retained when the face is “remembered,” is at the heart of eyewitness memory.

I have testified as an Expert Witness on Eyewitness Memory in more than 200 trials in Federal, State and Superior Courts. I did not plan to work in Courts as an Expert Witness, nor is it likely to have worked out if I had planned for this. The truth is that for me as well as anyone, my credibility in Court as an Expert Witness relies on my academic credentials and publication record. In other words, you have to be an “expert” at something before you can testify in Court as an Expert Witness. And, I truly believe that no one can be an expert at anything unless they really enjoy it – it’s too hard and too much work otherwise. Testifying in Court is tough; I would not want to do it full time. Where else do you spend hours sitting on a stage in front of a large group of people facing a smart, verbally articulate individual whose job it is to make you look like an idiot? But the truth is that my research is better because it is informed by the experiences I have had as an Expert Witness, and my work in Court is better because of the research that I do to back it up. There is a synergy here that makes my professional world work.

But, am I all work and no play? No! One of the best features of my career is that although it necessitates long hours of work, the hours are flexible. Most of the time I can work when I want and where I want. So I am at home much of the time where I can work near my family. And, yes, I do work too late at night, but I also am home most afternoons when our boys come home from school, and most days find time to run, row or do yoga. I don’t have rigid lines that separate my family and my work – I know their world and they know mine, and I like it this way.

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , ,

Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor

July 1, 2011 By Comments

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/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/careerspotlight.jpg” alt=”" width=”260″ height=”194″ />Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor

Dr. Bette L. Bottoms, Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois, Chicago

I grew up on a farm in beautiful Southside Virginia, a couple hours from anything resembling an urban environment. I’m now a Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. How did I get here? I often wonder that myself, so let’s see if I can tell you.

I first became interested in the field of Psychology and Law when I was in college in the mid- 1980s at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia (alma mater of Pearl Buck and home of the first psychology laboratory in the South). A professor named Frank Murray pointed me to a few exciting new books: John Monahan’s Predicting Violent Behavior and Beth Loftus and Gary Well’s Eyewitness Testimony. I was drawn to the topics and Mr. Murray encouraged me to write to Professors Loftus and Wells for their advice about how to enter this field of research. I still have the encouraging letters they took the time to write to me. I conducted my honor’s thesis research on the accuracy of eyewitness memory. Then I was told that I had to go to something called “graduate school” to continue my studies. So I mailed out applications fairly randomly, including one to the University of Denver, where there was a cognitive developmental psychologist named Gail Goodman, who was at that moment starting the field of children’s eyewitness testimony. I took my first ever airplane flight and visited her laboratory, and I knew it was the place for me. I got my Master’s Degree in cognitive psychology at D.U., then followed Gail to the State University of New York at Buffalo, where, with her and others’ wonderful guidance, I got my Ph.D. in Social Psychology.

My graduate training was very broad, so I’m a mix of cognitive, developmental, social, and even a little community and clinical psychology. My work then and now is unified by the theme of children, psychology, and law. I study the accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony, techniques to improve children’s reports of past events, jurors’ perceptions of children’s testimony, and various issues related to child abuse. If you’re interested in the field, take a look at a book that I edited with colleagues Margaret Kovera and Brad McAuliff, Children, Social Science, and Law, from Cambridge University Press.

As I write this, I’m finishing my 12th year at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Being a professor is one of the best jobs around, although this occupation seems to be a mystery to many students. To varying degrees, professors all teach, mentor students, conduct research and write, and do service for the university, the community, and the field. It’s not an easy job, and it requires dedication and long hours. But it sure ain’t digging ditches, either! You have incredible flexibility in terms of setting your own schedule, choosing what to study, and how to teach. You have the opportunity to work with lots of interesting colleagues and students. To a great extent, you are your own boss. And what about job security? At most colleges and universities, if you are successful in your first 6 years or so, you can be awarded tenure, which means you can never be fired (well, unless you really screw up). At UIC, which is a research-intensive university, there is a particular emphasis on conducting and publishing research, so that has been a big part of my job. But my career has also included a great deal of teaching, graduate student training, and service. I was even an Associate Dean for several years, where I learned at lot about the business of universities. I’m also active in the American Psychological Association, especially Division 41 (the American Psychology-Law Society) and Division 37 (Child, Youth, and Family Services), of which I’ll be President in 2005. I like the varied and changing nature of my job – it’s impossible to get bored.

So, what’s my advice to you? Figure out what you enjoy doing, then work your tail off at it. Read the Careers in Psychology and Law document on this website to learn more about academic and other careers in this field. Don’t bother going to graduate school unless you really like the topic and the nature of the work, and unless you are willing to work very hard to distinguish yourself. If you like what you are doing, then working hard is not onerous, and you will enjoy your professional life. But if this kind of career is not a match for your temperament or interests, do something else – there’s a world of other great possibilities, and no time to waste being unhappy. Good luck!

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , ,

Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor

June 29, 2011 By Comments

g/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/careerspotlight.jpg” alt=”" width=”260″ height=”194″ />

Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor

Dr. Gail S. Goodman, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis

It was no accident that I ended up specializing in scientific research on psychology and law, especially as it relates to children. I grew up in Los Angeles, CA, the youngest daughter of an attorney and an elementary school teacher. Growing up hearing about my mother’s experiences in an orphanage left a deep impression that has had a strong influence on the direction of my research.

Although my original goal was to become a child clinical psychologist, my honors thesis at UCLA on Piagetian theory convinced me that my true calling was as a researcher. I went on to receive a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from UCLA in 1977. However, my doctoral training was in basic cognitive development, with a focus on memory. My graduate program offered no training in psychology and law. To satisfy my desire for such knowledge, I audited several law school seminars (e.g., on the Constitutional Rights of Children) while serving as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Denver. By that time, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus had published landmark work on memory malleability in adult witnesses. As a developmentalist, with sensitivity to child welfare, I wondered why there was so little research on children’s eyewitness testimony, given how potentially important children’s statements could be in certain types of legal situations (e.g., child maltreatment cases).

Back in the late 1970s, no one in psychology seemed to care about the topic of child witnesses. For example, my first concept paper to a granting agency was unsuccessful: The rejection letter was addressed to “Dr. Fail Goodman.” Some early attempts to present papers and publish on child witnesses met with a similar lack of enthusiasm. However, a friend at Psychology Today Magazine arranged for me to publish an article there. The article won Honorable Mention from the American Bar Association in a contest on papers contributing to the American legal system. The Journal of Social Issues then accepted a proposal from me to edit a special issue on child witnesses.

At about the same time that the special issue was published, the topic of children’s testimony became of national concern, as a result of several high-profile child sexual abuse cases (e.g., the McMartin Preschool case). I found myself being perhaps the only scientist in the world who at that time was specializing on child eyewitness testimony, including having conducted scientific research on such topics as children’s memory for traumatic events and children’s suggestibility concerning abuse allegations. It has never been my view that either children or adults are unsuggestible, but my students and I have found that many children, by age 4 or 5 years, are typically less suggestible about taboo abuse- related acts than about many other types of information. This was quite controversial at the time.

I was a new assistant professor and found myself way over my head. Although I am extremely hard working, I also tend to be shy, and I hated public speaking. I just wanted to do something for justice, children, and science. And suddenly, I was in the national limelight. I went on to become the first person to obtain a federal grant on child eyewitness testimony and to have work on child witnesses cited pivotally in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. I continue my research today on child witnesses, as well as trauma and memory generally (and numerous other topics), with one of my great joys being mentoring graduate students. It is such an important time in one’s life, to go from being an undergraduate to becoming a skilled professional. I am so grateful to have had an opportunity to fulfil my life dream of contributing both to child welfare and to science. It is part of my mission to help others fulfill their dreams as well.

I am currently a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and Professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of Oslo, Norway. I’ve won many awards for research and teaching, and I spend my free time with my twin daughters, Lauren and Danielle, and my husband, Phillip Shaver, who is also a psychology professor.

My advice to students: Find a topic about which you feel passionate and then give it all you’ve got. In the end, there’s nothing better than knowing you can make a difference. And if a shy, short person like me can do it, you can, too!

Dr. Elizabeth Cauffman, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of California, Irvine

When I entered college sixteen years ago at the University of California, Davis, I planned to be an engineer. My first engineering course convinced me otherwise. I did not enjoy the subject, nor was I particularly good at it. The social science courses were much more palatable, however, so I decided to follow in my mother’s footsteps by majoring in psychology and pursuing a career as a clinician. I knew that this would require graduate training. I also knew that standardized test-taking was not one of my strengths. I therefore made a concerted effort to excel in class, in the lab, and in the department, in order to counteract what I knew would be unimpressive GRE scores. I worked hard on my courses (made easier by true interest), I volunteered as a lab assistant for Rebecca Eder (who was exploring young children’s self concepts and their ability to mimic facial expressions), and I served on the Psychology Department’s curriculum development committee. After two years of interviewing 3-5 year olds using puppets, and after being peed on a number of times, I knew that this was not the age group for me, but I was harboring a growing interest in developmental psychology. I had not yet abandoned my plan to become a clinician, but was growing increasingly familiar with the world of research, publication, and conference-going that occupies professors’ time during the hours they aren’t in class.

When the time came to apply to graduate programs during my senior year, my GRE scores were, as expected, low. In addition, I found myself inexplicably engaged to a first-year graduate student at Princeton. Undaunted, I drew a circle on a map and applied to clinical and developmental graduate programs located within 60 miles of Princeton, NJ. After applying, I flew to the area and toured each department, arranging for informal interviews with department chairs and other faculty members, so that they could witness first-hand my potential (or at least my chutzpah), and so that they would (hopefully) overlook my GRE scores. This effort proved invaluable. During my visit to Temple University, I met Laurence Steinberg, who had just become chair of the Developmental Psychology Department. He warned me that it was his first interview as chair. I told him, “That’s fine, this is my first interview as a future graduate student.” I also met with Nora Necombe. They both asked if I would retake the GRE to improve my score. I don’t know how I did it, but I firmly refused. I told them that taking the test again would not help, that my record was otherwise exemplary, and that they would simply have to look past the test score to see me as a dedicated and industrious student with great potential. Miraculously, they did! I entered Temple’s doctoral program in developmental psychology.

Knowing the dangers of working with young children, I joined Larry Steinberg’s adolescent development lab (adolescents, at least, are potty trained). Still, I hadn’t given up on my idea of becoming a clinician, so I found a part-time job as a counselor at a teen shelter in New Jersey. When I was forced to relinquish an 8-year old girl to her alleged abuser because she recanted her story, I decided that I did not have the stamina to endure a lifetime of such frustration. I would become a researcher, and would work to help these kids that way. During one lab meeting, I volunteered to work with Larry on a paper about adolescent development and juvenile justice issues. We debated about the age at which adolescents become competent to stand trial, to be tried in adult court, or to be considered culpable for their actions. We pored through the research to see what developmental psychology could tell us about these questions. This was the most interesting and exciting project I had ever worked on, and led naturally to a dissertation topic. (With dissertations, it is important that you be absolutely wild about the idea when you start, because that enthusiasm has to get you through many years of hard work.) During my final year of graduate school, Larry was working to establish a MacArthur Foundation research network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. As his assistant, I attended meetings with many of the leading psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, historians, economists, and practitioners (judges, attorneys, etc.) from across the country, all of whom were trying to understand various aspects of adolescence and the law. It was the best classroom in the world. After finishing my Ph.D., I was offered a postdoctoral position at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University. With Hans Steiner, a child psychiatrist, and Shirley Feldman, a developmental psychologist, I began to explore the mental health and developmental issues of youths in the California Youth Authority. This emphasis on clinical issues (such as the detection of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in incarcerated youth) placed me even deeper into the “interdisciplinary” category. This can make it hard to find a good “fit” in a traditional department, although interdisciplinary programs are growing in popularity.

During two years on the job market as a post-doc, I received only two offers (neither of which was from a psychology department), so my next move was to the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) at the University of Pittsburgh to work in the Psychiatry and Law Program with Edward Mulvey. I’m neither a psychiatrist nor a lawyer, but there I was. At WPIC, survival as a researcher is predicated heavily on the ability to obtain outside funding for one’s work. I was given two years to raise my salary through grant funding. Fortunately, in Ed Mulvey, I had an expert in the art of grant-writing as a mentor. During my years at WPIC, I received a 5-year Career Development Award (K01) from NIMH, a 4-year grant on psychopathy from the William T. Grant Foundation, a 2 year grant from NIJ to analyze data on female offenders from the 1920s, and a 2-year grant from the State of Pennsylvania to study mental health issues among kids in detention. Despite this success, though, I missed having students and I missed the feel of a more traditional academic department. So I went back on the job market once again. I recently accepted a position at the University of California, Irvine, in the Psychology and Social Behavior Department. So, it’s yet another cross-country trip (number four, in case you’ve lost track) for another new chapter in my ever-evolving career.

People tend to recount their personal histories as if the outcome was inevitable, or as if they had always been working toward their present situation. In reality, one must choose a goal and make plans based on the information available at the time, but remain open to altering course if conditions change or unique opportunities arise. Equally important: remember that the journey is as important as the destination. This sort of career, especially, is one that you need to love to do well in, because it’s all journey.

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , ,

Forensic Psychology Careers | Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor

June 27, 2011 By Comments

Forensic Psychology Career Spotlight

A few years back, I was part of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Careers and Training Committee, which put together a career handbook for prospective students in forensic psychology (psychology and law). Part of this manual contained a series of biographies from various professionals in forensic psychology to give students an idea of what it is like to work in this field as well as the wide variety of opportunities that the field holds. Short, personal statements were solicited from successful doctoral-level psychologists whose work related to psychology and law (forensic psychology issues).

Biographers were asked to describe how they choose their career path, how they ended up in their current position, and what advice they would give to aspiring students. The intent was to give interested students a glimpse of career options and the steps some people took to get there.

To ensure a wide variety of professionals, biographies were solicited from 10 different categories:

  1. Forensic/Clinical
  2. Policy-Relevant
  3. Trial Consulting
  4. Non- Academic Research
  5. Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor
  6. Academic—Graduate, Community Psychology Professor
  7. Academic—Graduate, Social Psychology Professor
  8. Academic—Graduate, Cognitive Psychology Professor
  9. Academic—Graduate, Developmental Psychology Professor
  10. Academic—Law School Professor

These biographies serve as an interesting collection of careers that are possible within the field of forensic psychology. I can’t help but think as I re-read through my own, and my colleagues’, biographies what a wide variety of options there are within this field and how my love for the field has not yet waned. For anyone who is considering a career in forensic psychology, these 10 biographies are a great read. Enjoy!

Academic—Liberal Arts/Undergraduate Professor

 

Dr. Mark Costanzo, Professor of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College

I am especially interested in jury decision-making, the death penalty, police interrogations, mediation as an alternative to litigation, and sexual harassment. I received my Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1986 and I am currently a Professor of Psychology and co-director of the Center for Applied Psychological Research at Claremont McKenna College (CMC). CMC is a small liberal arts college which is part of the Claremont consortium of colleges (Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, and McKenna). Although I am primarily a teacher and researcher, I also consult with attorneys and occasionally serve as an expert witness. In addition to my research articles, I have written two books in the area of psychology and law — Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty (St. Martin’s Press, 1997), and Psychology Applied to Law (Wadsworth 2004).

I first became interested in psychology and law during graduate school when I was working as a consultant for a Public Defender’s Office and spending too much time watching legal dramas on television. I began to see the legal system as an ideal arena for looking at how basic psychological processes–such as persuasion, motivation, decision-making, memory, and group dynamics–operate in the world outside the laboratory.

Prior to joining the faculty at CMC, I had no experience with small liberal arts colleges. Through my job at CMC, I have found that working at a small liberal arts college has several benefits. I am able to teach small, in-depth undergraduate seminars (e.g., Psychology and Law, Research Methods, Mediation and Dispute Resolution) and am encouraged to develop close working relationships with students. I feel fortunate to be able to work with talented undergraduate students who have the great luxury of being able to focus on their college education for four intense years. Also, because small liberal arts colleges tend to value cross-disciplinary scholarship, they tend to be welcoming environments for people who examine the legal system using the tools of psychological theory and methods.

I have much advice for students. My own students generally thank me for wise advice and then ignore it. My standard advice to undergraduates is to avoid premature specialization. By taking courses in many different fields, students can clarify their own interests and learn to see the connections between disciplines. Completing a major is secondary to the more important goal of developing essential skills— thinking critically, expressing ideas clearly, working effectively with other people, and acting in ethically responsible ways. I have two bits of specific advice. First, take a course in Psychology and Law or Forensic Psychology to get a sense of whether you might want to pursue a career in this exciting, expanding field. Second, try to do research in collaboration with a faculty member. Becoming involved in the research process will help you decide whether you are suited for a career in psychology and law.

Although my primary appointment is at CMC, I also work with graduate students at Claremont Graduate University. I advise graduate students who are interested in psychology and law to find ways of working with the legal system during graduate school. More generally, I try to remind students that graduate school is a rare and precious opportunity to immerse themselves in their chosen discipline and to learn most of what there is to know about a few important issues.

 

Dr. Amy Bradfield, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bates College

I am currently an assistant professor of psychology at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Bates is a small, residential liberal arts college of about 1700 students. I teach the required statistics course for our majors, a first-year seminar in social influence and an upper level course in psychology and law. My department has 8 full time faculty and about 65 senior majors every year.

My interest in psychology and law was piqued during my junior year at Williams College when I took Psychology and Law with Dr. Saul Kassin. Until that semester, I didn’t even know that such an area existed. Needless to say, his course was fascinating and prompted my search of graduate schools in which I could pursue my interest in psychology and law. To that end, I chose the Iowa State University social psychology program, where I worked with Dr. Gary Wells, earning my Ph.D. in 2001 with a research focus on eyewitness testimony.

During graduate school, I always planned to return to a liberal arts environment. This career path appealed to me because of the close relationships I developed with faculty during college and because I believed that a liberal arts college would allow me to focus on psychology and law, while maintaining my interests in other areas. To a large extent, my assumptions have proven correct. I enjoy very close relationships with current and former students. I also love teaching a first-year seminar on social influence and our statistics course, two things I probably would not do had I chosen a position defined as “psychology and law.”

I think that my broad training as a social psychologist as well as my research expertise in one area (eyewitness testimony) made me appealing to a liberal arts college. In addition, the fact that I earned a graduate minor in statistics allowed me to apply for positions in which departments were searching for someone to teach statistics and “any other courses in a specialty area”. My experience suggests that defining oneself broadly might increase the possibility of finding a good match with a liberal arts college.

People sometimes shy away from liberal arts colleges, in part, because of a perception that teaching loads are unreasonably high and undergraduates are unable to contribute to research programs. In my experience, neither of these perceptions is true. At Bates, the teaching load is reasonable: 5 courses per year. The students are talented enough to contribute to my research program in meaningful ways. In fact, because each senior must conduct original research for a senior thesis, there is no dearth of students ready and willing to listen to ideas for a senior thesis. Of course, some students come with their own ideas which means that I do supervise theses outside my area of expertise or interest. However, as students become more familiar with my research program, the proportion of theses I supervise that are directly related to my own interests continues to grow. The liberal arts college has been a good fit for me, one that I find both fulfilling and challenging.

Filed Under: Career & Salary Info, Career Information, Career Profiles, Forensic & Clinical Psychology Tagged With: , , ,
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