Psychology Dept. Class of 1960 Scholars Colloquium: “Interviewing in Asylum Cases”

Dr. Amina Memon, Chair of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, will present “Interviewing in Asylum Cases: Challenges in Eliciting Narratives and Assessing Credibility” on Monday, November 28, at 4:15 p.m. in Wachenheim 113. This event is partially funded by the Lecture Committee.

Prof Memon is also director of the interdisciplinary Research Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law at Royal Holloway. She conducts robust and ecologically valid research on the use of cognitive techniques in police investigations. Her work is informed by social psychological approaches to understanding memory, decision making, detection of deception, and credibility assessment. Dr. Memon has ongoing research collaborators in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, North America, and Finland. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Royal Society of Arts.

Prof Memon’s work has had substantial impact outside of academia, as evidenced by her Economic & Social Research Council prize for contributions to policy (ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioral and human data science). Her work has important implications for how children, vulnerable adults, and seniors are interviewed and how these interviews are undertaken and processed by police officers, judges, and other professionals within the judiciary system.

In addition, Prof. Memon has served as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases where she has been consulted on her expert knowledge on child witnesses, memory, eyewitness identification, and historic abuse in the UK and USA. She is on the appointing panel of the Netherlands Register of Court Experts and has contributed to the work of the Anti-Torture Initiative.

Prof. Memon’s contributions to the voluntary sector include her work on the communication strategy board for Women’s Health and Family Services, her work on the project advisory board for Asylum Aid, and on the Research and Ethics board for Freedom from Torture. Dr. Memon is also non-executive director of a community arts project that brings creative arts to young and elderly residents living in social isolation.