Director:
Christian A. Meissner, Ph.D.
Email: cmeissner@iastate.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Christian Meissner is Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive & Behavioral Science from Florida State University (2001) and conducts empirical studies in applied cognition, including the role of memory, attention, perception, and decision processes in real world tasks. He has published more than 125 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and edited volumes, and has received more than $20 million in grant funding from such agencies as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, and the U.S. Intelligence Community. From 2010 – 2012, he served as Program Director of Law & Social Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Meissner is currently President of the American Psychology-Law Society (Div. 41 of the APA), and a past President of the Society for Applied Research in Memory & Cognition. He is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Psychonomic Society.
Post-Doctoral Scholars:
Elizabeth Elliott, Ph.D.
Email: elliotte@iastate.edu
Elizabeth Elliott is post-doctoral scholar at the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University in the Applied Cognition laboratory. She received her PhD in Forensic Psychology (2022) and her MA in Criminology (2015) from Ontario Tech University. Dr. Elliott’s primary area of research is deception detection in forensic contexts. Her research interests include cognitive and social underpinnings of deception detection, decision making, and investigative interviewing. She has also conducted deception detection research with vulnerable populations (e.g., non-native speakers, veiled women). Her research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the American-Psychology Law Society.
Doctoral Students:
Patricia A. Ferreira, M.A.
Email: pferr@iastate.edu
Patricia A. Ferreira earned a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Criminal Justice from the University of Massachusetts–Lowell in 2019, and an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Appalachian State University in 2021. Ms. Ferreira joined the Social Psychology doctoral program at Iowa State University in 2021 and the Applied Cognition Laboratory in 2022. Her research interests center on the social-cognitive processes involved in police-suspect interactions, with a particular interest in Miranda administrations. Ms. Ferreira also has interests in juror decision-making in the context of expert testimony. Ms. Ferreira is a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, and her research has also been supported by the American Psychology-Law Society.
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Alexander D. Perry, M.S.
Email: aperry@iastate.edu
Alexander Perry received his B.A in Psychology & Interdisciplinary Studies from Florida International University (2020) and his M.S in Experimental Psychology from Nova Southeastern University (2022). His graduate thesis examined the relationship between mock-jurors’ moral values and their conviction decisions. Mr. Perry joined the Applied Cognition Laboratory and the Cognitive Psychology doctoral program at Iowa State University in 2022. His research interests include the role of morality and social-cognitive biases in investigate interviewing, deception detection and legal decision-making contexts. Mr. Perry’s research has been supported by the American Psychology-Law Society.
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Kaiah Sotebeer, B.A.
Email: ksote@iastate.edu
Kaiah N. Sotebeer received her B.A. in Psychology with minors in Sociology and Cross-Cultural Interaction from Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota) in 2022. Ms. Sotebeer joined Iowa State’s Cognitive Psychology doctoral program in 2022 and the Applied Cognition Laboratory in 2023. Her research interests include the topic areas of bilingualism, false memories, misinformation, juror decision making, and deception detection.
Affiliated Practitioners & Scholars:
Det. Matthew Jones (Evocavi, LLC; Tempe Police Department, ret)
Matt Jones is a recently retired member of local law enforcement, having served twenty-one years across three different agencies. He completed assignments in Patrol, Robbery, a Criminal Apprehension and Surveillance Team, as a taskforce officer with the U.S. Marshalls Violent Offender Fugitive Taskforce, and in Homicide. Matt has been collaborating with science-based interviewing researchers since 2015 and began participating in science-based interview training in 2017. He is a LEADS Scholar with the National Institute of Justice. In 2020, Matt founded Evocavi LLC, which provides training in science-based interview techniques. Matt has delivered this training to local law enforcement agencies across the country, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and to corporate security investigators. Matt also regularly consults on criminal cases related to problematic interview tactics. Matt holds an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from the University of North Dakota, and a B.S. in Political Science/Criminal Justice from the University of Akron. He is currently President of Evocavi, LLC.
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Col. Steven Kleinman, M.S. (U.S. Air Force, ret)
Steve Kleinman is a career intelligence officer with 30 years of operational and leadership experience in assignments worldwide. He is a recognized subject matter expert in human intelligence, strategic interrogation, intelligence support to special operations, and special survival training. He has the distinction of serving both as the Director of the Combat Interrogation Course and as the Department of Defense Senior Intelligence Officer for Resistance to Interrogation training. Col. Kleinman is a veteran of three major military campaigns (Operations Just Cause, Desert Shield/Storm, and Iraqi Freedom) where he served as an interrogator, case officer, chief of a joint and combined interrogation team, and as a senior advisor on interrogation operations to a special operations task force. He has been cited as one of the most prolific interrogators during the first Gulf War. He has testified on interrogation and detainee policy before five Congressional intelligence, armed services, and judiciary committees, and served as the senior advisor to the Intelligence Science Board’s 2005-2008 study on strategic interrogation. Col. Kleinman is a founding member and Chair of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group Research Committee, and he contributes extensively to research conducted in the Applied Cognition Laboratory on interviewing, interrogation, and credibility assessment.
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Erik Phillips, M.S. (U.S. Army, ret)
Erik Phillips is a former Army Special Operations interrogator and Arabic linguist. His operational experience spans three combat theaters, and his reporting has proven instrumental in guiding decision-making ranging from tactical-level operations to national-level policy. He is uniquely qualified in exploiting Islamic extremist networks and in countering extremist propaganda and recruitment efforts. Mr. Phillips earned both a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Psychological Science from the University of Colorado at Colorado Spring, graduating with honors and focusing his research and studies on the science of interrogation and credibility assessment. Mr. Phillips serves as a member of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group Research Committee, and he works with the Applied Cognition Laboratory to validate and translate scientific research into meaningful best practices for current and next-generation practitioners.
Former Doctoral Students & Post-Doctoral Scholars:
Justin Albrechtsen, Ph.D.
National Security Psychologist
Justin Albrechtsen received his Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso (2010). He was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2005 – 2010. His research focused on improving human judgments of deception by orienting individuals to more accurate cues and by inducing intuitive (as opposed to deliberative) judgments.
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Dominick Atkinson, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Scholar, University of Idaho
Email: dominickatkinson@gmail.com
Dominick Atkinson received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Iowa State University (2019). He was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2014 – 2019. His current research seeks to identify ethical and effective interviewing techniques that promote the disclosure of information from suspects, and investigates the ability of individuals to detect deception in forensic contexts. Dr. Atkinson is currently a Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Department of Psychology at the University of Idaho.
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Laure Brimbal, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Texas State University
Email: LBrimbal@txstate.edu
Laure Brimbal received her Ph.D. in Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, CUNY in 2016. She was a postdoctoral scholar in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2017 – 2020. Her research focuses on interrogation techniques, lie detection, and law enforcement decision making. Her research has evaluated the effectiveness of rapport and trust building techniques in intelligence interviews, developed a conceptual model of resistance and its mitigation, and examined the effectiveness of training approaches on real-world interviews. Dr. Brimbal is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas State University.
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Rachel Dianiska, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Scholar, University of California at Irvine
Email: rdianisk@uci.edu
Rachel Dianiska received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Iowa State University (2020), and completed B.S. in Psychology with honors from Louisiana State University where she conducted research with Dr. Sean Lane examining the relationship between deception and how well a lie is remembered. She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2014 – 2020. Dr. Dianiska’s research investigates the influence of various cognitive processes to issues such as interviewing and credibility assessment, the development of false memories, and the influence of lying on memory for the truth. Dr. Dianiska is currently a Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California at Irvine.
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Jacqueline R. Evans, Ph.D.
Professor, Florida International University
Email: jacevans@fiu.edu
Jacki Evans received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2008). She was a postdoctoral scholar in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2010 – 2013. Her research focuses on investigative interviewing in its many forms, to include interviewing cooperative witnesses, interrogating uncooperative suspects, and gathering intelligence from sources. In addition, her research addresses the ability (or lack thereof) to detect deception in a variety of contexts. Dr. Evans is currently Professor of Psychology at Florida International University.
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Jesse (Rothweiler) Foster, Ph.D.
Research Analyst, Office of Institutional Research, Iowa State University
Email: jrothw@iastate.edu
Jesse Rothweiler received her B.A. in Psychology from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania (2015). Her undergraduate research focused on attention depletion and restoration. She received her M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Towson University (2017). Her graduate thesis examined how the presence of other individuals (social facilitation) might influence cross-race identifications from a lineup (Rothweiler, Goodwin, & Kukucka, 2020). Dr. Rothweiler received her doctorate in Cognitive Psychology at Iowa State University (2022). Her research is currently focused on the cross-race effect in face identification. She is currently a Research Analyst with the Office of Institutional Research at Iowa State University.
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Allyson Horgan, Ph.D.
Senior Research Analyst, Arizona Criminal Justice Commission
Allyson Horgan received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso (2011). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2007 – 2011. Dr. Horgan’s research focused on interview and interrogation methods that facilitate more diagnostic confessions and improve human judgments of deception. She is currently Senior Research Analyst at the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.
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Kate Houston, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Texas A&M International University
Email: kate.houston@tamiu.edu
Kate Houston received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Aberdeen, U.K. (2011). She was a postdoctoral scholar in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2011 – 2014. Dr. Houston’s research focuses on the development of evidence-based information elicitation strategies within a wide array of interviewing contexts, such as witness interviews, suspect investigations, and human intelligence interrogations. Her research also considers factors of emotion and memory, social influence, rapport development, and the role of interpreters in the interrogative context. Dr. Houston is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas A&M International University.
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Julie LaBianca, Ph.D.
Senior Customer Experience Researcher, Baylor Scott & White Health
Email: julielabianca@gmail.com
Julie LaBianca received her Ph.D. in the Legal Psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso (2016). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2010 – 2016. Her research focuses on the social perception of interviewing and interrogation practices, most notably exploring public support for torture and other coercive interrogation practices. For seven years she served as Senior Research Analyst for Institutional Research at Iowa State University, then as a Senior UX Research Investigator for Gearbox Entertainment. She is currently a Senior Customer Experience Researcher at Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas, TX.
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Ryann (Haw) Leonard, Ph.D.
Investigations Program Manager, Amazon
Email: leoryann@amazon.com
Ryann Leonard (née Haw) received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2005). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2002 – 2005. Her research focus was on eyewitness identification decision errors and facial processing errors. Dr. Leonard is currently the Investigations Program Manager for Amazon.
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Stephen Michael, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, Whitman College
Email: michaesw@whitman.edu
Stephen Michael received his Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso. His research focuses on the psychological processes that influence deception detection and investigative interviewing techniques. Dr. Michael was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2008 – 2013. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Whitman College.
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Amelia Mindthoff, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, ISU College of Veterinary Medicine
Email: amindt@iastate.edu
Amelia Mindthoff received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2020) and is currently a Research Scientist at the Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Mindthoff’s research primarily focuses on examining the efficacy of evidence-based investigative interviewing methods. She also studies juror perceptions and decision making regarding various topics (e.g., interrogations, forensic evidence). Dr. Mindthoff’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the American Psychology-Law Society.
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Tara L. Mitchell, Ph.D.
Professor, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
Email: tmitchel@lhup.edu
Tara Mitchell received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2005). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2002 – 2005. Dr. Mitchell’s research interests focus on understanding and reducing discrimination, as well as gender- and sexuality-based violence. She spends much of her free time working with a domestic violence and rape crisis center. Dr. Mitchell is currently Professor of Psychology and Coordinator of Women & Gender Studies at Lock Haven University.
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Fadia Narchet, Ph.D.
Professor, University of New Haven
Email: fnarchet@newhaven.edu
Fadia Narchet received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2005). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2002 – 2005. Dr. Narchet’s research interests focus on the investigative interviewing of cooperative and non-cooperative subjects. She is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven.
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Simon Oleszkiewicz, Ph.D.
Research Scholar, VU University of Amsterdam
Email: s.oleszkiewicz@vu.nl
Simon Oleszkiewicz received his Ph.D in Psychology from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in 2016. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2016 – 2017. His research involves experimental evaluations of the efficacy of different interview techniques for intelligence gathering, with a focus on subtle elicitation tactics and trust-building strategies. Dr. Oleszkiewicz’s work places a premium on developing novel measures that captures important aspects of human intelligence gathering interactions. He is also involved in developing evidence-based training for police and military practitioners in the United States and Scandinavian countries. Dr. Oleszkiewicz is now a Research Scholar in Legal Psychology at the VU University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
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Melissa B. Russano, Ph.D.
Professor, Roger Williams University
Email: mrussano@rwu.edu
Melissa Russano received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2004). She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2002 – 2004. Her research addresses various psychological and criminological aspects of investigative interviewing, including the processes of interrogation and confession. She has published numerous peer-reviewed publications in scholarly outlets relevant to interrogations, including the publication of an influential, widely used paradigm for studying interrogations in the laboratory (Russano et al., 2005). Dr. Russano is currently Professor of Criminal Justice at Roger Williams University.
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Maria (Krioukova) Shpurik, Ph.D.
Associate Teaching Professor, Florida International University
Email: shpurikm@fiu.edu
Maria Shpurik (née Krioukova) received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University (2003). She completed her doctoral dissertation with Dr. Meissner and explored factors that influence how mock jurors process confession and alibi evidence. Dr. Shpurik is currently an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University.
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Kyle J. Susa, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, California State University, Bakersfield
Email: ksusa@csub.edu
Kyle Susa received his Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso (2010). He was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2005 – 2010, and subsequently a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory (funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) from 2010 – 2015. His research focuses on the social and cognitive processes that can lead to memory errors in face identification, and how retrieval practice through testing can enhance memory accuracy in both legal and educational contexts. Dr. Susa is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at California State University, Bakersfield.
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Jessica K. Swanner, Ph.D.
Senior Manager of UX Research, CBRE
Email: jessicaswanner@gmail.com
Jessica Swanner received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Arkansas (2010). She was a postdoctoral scholar in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2013 – 2017. Her research investigates the various social and cognitive psychological processes that underlie investigative interviewing and the gathering of human intelligence, secondhand information, secrets, and criminal interrogations. She is currently a Head of UX Research at Ribbon.
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Skye Woestehoff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Coastal Carolina University
Email: swoesteho@coastal.edu
Skye Woestehoff received her Ph.D. in the Legal Psychology program at the University of Texas at El Paso. She was a graduate research assistant in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2010 – 2016. Her research applies social psychological theories, such as the correspondence bias and belief perseverance, to understand the psychological processes that jurors engage in when evaluating a confession. Dr. Woestehoff received funding from the National Science Foundation to support her dissertation research, which compares interrogation techniques that are currently used in the field with a novel interrogation approach believed to promote more diagnostic outcomes. Dr. Woestehoff is currently Associate Professor of Psychology at Coastal Carolina University.
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Jessica L. (Marcon) Zabecki, Ph.D.
Research Psychologist, Virginia Department of Education
Jess Marcon Zabecki received her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso (2009). She was a graduate research assistance in the Applied Cognition Laboratory from 2005 – 2009. Dr. Marcon Zabecki’s research focused on the underlying processes of the cross-race effect and the role of cognitive bias and perception in forensic fingerprint identification. She has worked in both academic and applied research environments since leaving UTEP, to include supporting efforts in intelligence interviewing, military behavioral health, and military sexual assault. Dr. Marcon Zabecki served as Deputy Director for the Department of the Navy’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, and is currently a Research Psychologist with the Virginia Department of Education.