LAb director:
Lora M. Levett
Ph.D. Associate Professor of Criminology
My research uses social and cognitive psychological methods and theory to explore various aspects of decision making in our legal system. Under that umbrella, most of the research in my lab explores juror and jury decision making, eyewitness identification, and antecedents and consequences of wrongful conviction. My goal in research is to understand the factors that affect decision making and to develop methods that help produce just outcomes in the legal system.
GRADUATE STUDENTs:
cassidy Haigh
Cassidy is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Criminology and Law Program. In her research, she uses a multidisciplinary approach to investigate decision making in the wrongful conviction context. Specifically, she uses theories and methods from criminology and psychology to explore how legal and extralegal factors affect the perceptions, decisions, and behavior of legal actors (e.g., prosecutors, eyewitnesses, jurors). Cassidy earned a B.S. in Criminal Justice and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of New Haven in 2018. She earned a M.A. in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of Florida in 2021.
GISSEL perez
Gissel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Criminology and Law Program. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Criminal Justice from Florida International University. She received her M.A. from the University of Florida and is currently working on Ph.D. in Criminology, Law & Society at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on juror decision-making. Specifically, she examines how different types of evidence, such as confessions and secondary confessions, affect how jurors make decisions.
Shelby mikkelson
Kyle hewit
Kyle received his B.A. with a double major in Criminology and Psychology from Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida and his M.A. from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. He is currently obtaining his Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society at UF. His research focuses on jurors' perceptions of forensic experts and other types of witnesses, policies to reduce juror bias in the courtroom, examining the causes and correlates of wrongful conviction, and reducing wrongful conviction through novel or updated policy.