Rebecca is a Professor at the University of Exeter Law School and a UKRI future leaders fellow. She is an expert in the field of psychology and law and using quantitative methodology to examine the legal system. Her research examines how legal procedures work in practice, and how changing aspects of procedure can enhance the ability of the justice system to achieve normative goals including reducing miscarriages of justice.

Yan’s primary research interest is in forensic linguistics. Her PhD research focuses on courtroom discourse studies. Currently, she is investigating testimony evaluation and jury decision-making. Her main research methodologies include corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, and thematic analysis.

Sally is a criminologist, with a profile centred on the critical examination of state-corporate and safety crimes. A central theme of her work is survivorship and resistance strategies to state-corporate harms, focusing on the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in the UK and 2010 Pike River mine disaster in NZ. Sally uses in-depth, qualitative methods to explore experiences of state corporate victimisation in a political climate of denial, collusion, and cover-up.

David practiced law for about 30 years, almost exclusively in criminal law, before joining the University of Exeter to spend time undertaking research. He is interested in the law relating to criminal evidence and criminal procedure, with an emphasis on the impact that recent legislative changes have had on the criminal justice system, including police investigations and court proceedings.

Suzi recently completed her PhD at the University of Exeter Law School, funded by a South West Doctoral Training Partnership studentship. She is interested in using empirical and socio-legal methodology to examine vulnerability in the criminal justice system and criminal justice profession, and to reduce the negative consequences of vulnerability.

Maddy has recently completed her MRes in Psychology at the University of Bath, having graduated from the University of Exeter in 2015 with a first-class BSc in Psychology. Her interests lie in understanding biases in cognition, more specifically, uncovering the processes involved in sub-optimal decision making.  Maddy’s previous research has focussed on the extent of Psychological Essentialism and System Justification in the political sphere during times of threat, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Having worked as a Legal Assistant, Maddy is keen to apply her knowledge of Cognitive Psychology to the evaluation of evidence in miscarriages of justice.

Richard is Professor of Law and Professional ethics at the University of Exeter, a Professor of Law at Monash University, and an Honorary Professor of Law at UCL. A former solicitor he has spent his career researching lawyers and legal services, and has conducted research for the LSB, SRA, Law Society, Civil Justice Council, Ministry of Justice and others. He runs the influential lawyerwatch.blog and the Post Office Project (and that project’s substack on Thoughts on the Post Office Scandal). He is a member of the Department of Business and Trade’s Advisory Board on Horizon Compensation Schemes.

Guangtong is a current PhD student at the University of Exeter, and is a research assistant on our fMRI project.