Investigative Interviewing Research Laboratory

Current Lab Members

Christian Meissner, Ph.D. - Faculty, Director of Research
Email: cmeissner@utep.edu.
Download curriculum vitae.
Dr. Meissner received his Ph.D. in Cognitive & Behavioral Science from Florida State University (2001). In 2005, he joined the Legal Psychology and Criminal Justice Programs here at UTEP. His research investigates the various cognitive and social psychological processes that underlie investigative interviewing and the gathering of human intelligence, including eyewitness testimony, detection of deception, and interrogations.

Roy Malpass, Ph.D. - Faculty Collaborator
Email: rmalpass@utep.edu.
Dr. Malpass is a professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at UTEP. He has published extensively in the areas of face recognition, eyewitness identification, and cross-cultural psychology. His current interests including face recognition, cross-race recognition, eyewitness identification and memory, lineup procedures and fairness, culture and behavior. Dr. Malpass is a past President of the Psychology & Law Division of the International Association for Applied Psychology, and served as Executive Director of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. To learn more about his research, please visit http://eyewitness.utep.edu.

Harmon Hosch, Ph.D. - Faculty Collaborator
Email: hhosch@utep.edu.
Dr. Hosch is a professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at UTEP, and is currently Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His research interests include jury decision-making, language and culture factors in juror's perceptions of testimony, and factors influencing the believability of alibi statements. To learn more about Dr. Hosch's research, please visit http://clhb.utep.edu.

Justin Albrechtsen - Graduate Research Assistant
Email: jsalbrechtsen@utep.edu.
Download curriculum vitae.
Justin graduated from the University of Northern Iowa (2005) with a B.A. in Psychology. His current research interests include detecting deception across cultures, false confessions, and applying efficient and effective interrogation techniques to the real world. Justin's personal interests include music and sports, especially golf.

Allyson Horgan - Graduate Research Assistant
Email: ajhorgan@utep.edu.

Allyson completed a B.S. in Psychology with a pre-law minor at Arizona State University’s West Campus (2006). Currently she is working on her first year project which will examine aspects of alibis. Her other interests include eyewitness identification and false confessions. When not working, Allyson enjoys spending time with friends and family, sports, music and movies.

Jessica Marcon - Graduate Research Assistant
Email: jlmarcon@utep.edu.
Download curriculum vitae.
Jessica is a second year Ph.D. student working on the eyewitness side of the IILab. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Jessica graduated with a B.A. in Psychology (2004) from the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA. Jessica’s interests include eyewitness memory and cross-racial identification, the evaluation of alibis and the role of memory in alibi statements, and jury decision-making. She is currently working on her master’s thesis, which investigates the role of memory conformity in cross-racial identifications. Other projects include prosecutor and defense attorney experience with and perceptions of alibi claims; federal sentencing guidelines; and the impact of expert testimony and juror heuristics on death penalty decision-making. Jessica enjoys photography, traveling to new (and old) places, Yankees baseball, dancing and spending time with friends.

Kyle Susa - Graduate Research Assistant
Email: kjsusa@utep.edu.
Download curriculum vitae.
Kyle received a B.S. in Psychology and Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2002). After graduating, he taught psychology for three years at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee, WI. While in Milwaukee, he also worked as a research assistant performing Cognitive Neuroscience research at UWM. Kyle’s research interests include various aspects of eyewitness memory, facial identification, lie detection and alibis. Currently, he is conducting research on facial identification training, as part of a fellowship he received from the Department of Homeland Security. In his free time Kyle enjoys traveling, golfing, happy-hour, running, alpine skiing, water-skiing, windsurfing and being an avid Wisconsin Badger fan. His professional goal is to either become a psychology professor, or conduct research for the government. To learn more about Kyle, please visit: http://utminers.utep.edu/kjsusa.

Former Lab Members

Ryann Haw, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Big Bend Comm. College
Email: ryannh@bigbend.edu.

Ryann completed her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology in 2005 at Florida International University. She currently teaches Psychology and Criminal Justice courses at Big Bend Community College in Washington. She continues to conduct research on eyewitness memory.

Tara Mitchell, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Lock Haven Univ.
Email: tmitchel@lhup.edu.

Tara completed her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology in 2005 at Florida International University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was awarded the 2005 American Psychology-Law Society Dissertation Award (1st Place)! She continues to conduct research on race and social perception in the legal system and eyewitness memory.

Fadia Narchet, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Univ. of New Haven
Email: FNarchet@newhaven.edu.

Fadia completed her Ph.D. in Legal Psychology in 2005 at Florida International University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. While at FIU, Fadia was funded from a Predoctoral Fellowship (4 years) from the National Institute of General Medical Science for her research on Hostile and Benevolent Prejudice: A Perspective on Racism. Her research interests continue to include social conceptions of racial identity and prejudice, and the psychology of interrogations and confessions.

Melissa Russano, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Roger Williams Univ.

Maria Shpurik, Ph.D. - Office of Evaluation Research for Miami-Dade Public Schools