Research Interests

I am a cognitive scientist and a Lecturer at the University of Canterbury. I teach courses on forensic psychology and psychology and law.

My research focuses on how forensic science practitioners make decisions in their work. How does a fingerprint examiner determine whether two fingerprints are from the same person or two different people? How does a firearms examiner decide whether two cartridge cases have been fired from the same gun or two different guns? I am interested in the psychology behind how forensic scientists make these decisions to better understand how we can train and select forensic examiners in the future to increase professional performance.

I aim to develop training programs in my work to train current forensic scientists, and work out ways to select forensic experts in the future. I am keen to work with Postgraduate students in investigating these ideas and developing evidence-based ways to improve performance in forensic science.