Local Representatives

After completing her Psychology degree at Royal Holloway, University of London, Enide Maegherman moved to Maastricht to complete the Psychology and Law master. Her interest in legal psychology only increased, so she decided to do the master in Forensics, Criminology, and Law the following year. During both of these programs, she narrowed down her main interest to legal decision-making, and specifically to reasoning about evidence. That subsequently became the topic of her PhD research. After successfully defending her PhD thesis, she started working at University College Maastricht where she continues to be involved in research and teaching in the field of psychology and law.

Ann-Kathrin is 22 years old and completed her Psychology bachelor degree at Maastricht University. Over the course of the bachelor, her interest for the research field of legal psychology was sparked, so that she is currently enrolled in the “Legal Psychology” master track, also at Maastricht University. We study, for example, the reliability of eyewitness memory, the effectiveness of different interviewing and interrogation methods, what role neuropsychology plays in the courtroom, and how humans, with a special focus on experts (e.g. lawyers), can be biased in their decision-making. Besides studying, she likes to try different kinds of food, both making it herself and going out for dinner, meet friends for a coffee, and have movie nights.

Hedayat Selim is a PhD student in psychology at Åbo Akademi University. Her doctoral thesis investigates how asylum authorities assess the credibility of asylum claims based on religion and sexual orientation. Since 2012, Hedayat has worked in the field of migration and forced displacement with UN agencies, NGOs and academic institutions across Egypt, Italy and Finland. Her experience includes legal representation of asylum seekers, refugee status determination, and conducting training for policy-level actors involved in migratory affairs. She holds a master’s degree in human rights studies from Columbia University (New York) and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the American University in Cairo.

Sarah has completed her BSc in Psychology (2009-2012) and her MSc in Forensic Psychology (2012-2014) at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. She has worked with a wide range of offenders, ranging from (potential) child sex offenders in the community in Germany to high-secure forensic patients in the UK. Her research interests focus on child sexual abuse/ exploitation, online sex offending, sexual deviance, and prevention of sexual abuse. She is currently a PhD student at Sheffield Hallam University (UK), conducting research in the area of child sexual offending. In her free time, Sarah enjoys reading, Yoga, and calligraphy.

Elsa Gewehr is a research associate at the University of Kassel and a PhD-candidate in Berlin. Her scientific work deals with methods for interviewing children (especially about suspicions of sexual abuse), interviewer trainings and individual differences regarding the interviewer bias and suggestive questioning. Further research interests include children’s disclosure patterns and police suspect interviews. In practical terms, Elsa also works as an expert witness for court cases, assessing the credibility of child and adult witnesses’ statements (via Statement Validity Assessment [SVA]).

Nicola is a licensed psychologist and criminologist. He received a PhD from the University of Bergamo, an MSc in Applied Cognitive Psychology from the University of Bologna, and a BPS accredited MSc in Investigative Psychology from the University of Huddersfield. He was a visiting researcher at University of Portsmouth and University of Gothenburg. Nicola is now a postdoctoral researcher at University of Bergamo. His research focuses on investigative interviewing, information gathering and deception detection, research methods, and psychometrics. He has also trained law enforcement in investigative interviewing.

Alex is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany. He is also a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) in Amsterdam and at the Crim-Ap research group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Donostia, Spain. He holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU (Oct 2019) and an MSc in Forensic Psychology from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Jul 2015). Alex’s current research interests are the study of the spatial-temporal distribution of crime and the person-environment relationship in fear of crime, but also the study of methods and data analysis in Social Sciences.

Andreea has completed her BSc in Psychology (2010- 2013) and her MSc in Organizational Psychology (2013-2015) at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania). She is currently a Ph.D. student within the same faculty, specializing in understanding the psychology of financial behavior. Andreea works as an Associated Teaching Assistant (Forensic Psychology) at the Faculty of Psychology (2018-present) and Faculty of Law- (2019-2021). Her research interests in the forensic area focus on attitudes towards prisoners and perceptions towards financial/white-collar crimes. In addition, Andreea enjoys reading, watching movies, and learning new research and data analysis approaches.

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Anna has a BA in Psychology from Maynooth University and an MA in Criminology from University College Cork. In 2019, she started a PhD in Law at the University of Limerick in collaboration with the Irish Prison Service Psychology Service. Her research explores the management of people serving life sentences in Ireland. It is funded by an Irish Research Council Employment-Based Postgraduate Scholarship and the Irish Prison Service. Anna has also completed a Policy & Advocacy Internship with the Irish Penal Reform Trust and has worked as a Research Assistant with the University of Limerick School of Law and the Irish Prison Service Psychology Service.

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Simina is a Ph.D. student pursuing a joint doctorate at Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) and the University of Salamanca (Spain). Currently, she is a researcher at the Research in Individual Differences and Legal Psychology (RIDDLE) Lab, Babeș-Bolyai University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Legal Psychology, both from Babeș-Bolyai University. Her main research interest regards verbal cues of deception, with emphasis on the influence of cultural and ethnic background. Other research domains she is interested in include the differences in honest and dishonest communication in online and offline settings and how artificial intelligence could be employed in deception detection.

Charlotte Löfgren recently finished her master’s degree in psychology at the University of Gothenburg. Early during her bachelor’s, she became interested in legal psychology, especially concerning children in the legal area, child interviewing, credibility-, and reliability assessments. Her master thesis explored the Child Protective Services experiences interviewing children in cases of suspected child sexual abuse. Currently she is in the process of applying for funds, aiming to continue her research as a PhD student.

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Hugues Delmas holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Paris 8, and received an EAPL award for an oral communication. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at École Pratique de Hautes Études (EPHE) in Paris. His main interests are nonverbal communication and deception detection.

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Chloe has a BA in psychology from Carleton University (in Canada) with a concentration in forensic psychology. She is currently completing an MSc in clinical neuroscience at the University of Galway. She has previously been involved in research projects with the Parole Board of Canada. She also has experience with research pertaining to sexual offending and individuals found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder. Her current research is assessing the impact of trauma on youth in the criminal justice system and social services.

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João has completed an integrated master’s degree in psychology (2016-2021) at the School of Psychology, University of Minho (Portugal). His master’s dissertation focused on witness interviews and the impact of misinformation. He is currently a PhD student in psychology (funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology) at the School of Psychology, University of Minho (Portugal) and Liverpool John Moores University (UK). His research interests encompass child sexual abuse, investigative interviewing, credibility assessment, and judicial decision-making. In the practical field, João works as a psychologist and forensic expert, conducting forensic psychological assessments for Portuguese courts in civil and criminal cases, as well as psychological intervention with children and adult victims of crime.