What do Forensic Psychologists at ENU do?
Forensic Clinical Practice Research
At ENU we believe that Forensic Psychology has an important role in helping rehabilitate people who have contact with the justice system as well as in helping keep others, and society in general, safe. This takes clinical skill, expertise and training in a range of psychological therapies and assessment methods to address some of the most complex and challenging issues that psychologists face. Our team of Chartered Forensic Psychologists and Academics have considerable experience in working across a wide range of settings including prisons, secure hospitals, courts and social work services as well as government and third sector agencies. We strongly believe in an inclusive, trauma informed compassion focused approach should form the basis of all sound forensic practice. The research that we engage in at ENU seeks to understand and establish the most effective approach to alleviating the distress caused through offending and other forms of abuse and aggression. This includes comprehensively understanding the risk that justice involved individual may pose of future harm.
Justice and Legal Research
Within our ENU forensic team, we also have strong track record in undertaking research that helps investigates the robustness of decisions made by the court and other investigative processes. This includes investigating the efficacy of eye-witness testimony, true and false memories across the lifespan and facial recognition in forensic settings. An important consideration to this work is identifying sources of human bias and error within legal and investigative processes that might contribute to miscarriages of justice and how these might be minimised, as well as considering the psychological and wider impacts of such miscarriages.
What do forensic psychologists do… What is Forensic Psychology? (youtube.com)
Current Research Projects and Forensic / Clinical Work
- Developing and evaluating trauma informed and compassion focused interventions for the justice sector.
- Working with women in prison and other marginalised groups.
- Assessment of Violence, Sexual and Intimate Partner Offending
- Assessment of personality and cognitive functioning
- Assessment of trauma and complex trauma symptomatology and distress.
- Evaluation of Offending Behaviour Interventions and Programmes
- Working with third sector and other creative grassroots initiatives to ensure wellbeing and growth.
- Systematic Reviews to assist with the development of evidence-based practice.
- Supervision of Forensic Psychologists in Training undertaking Stage 2 of the BPS Chartership in Forensic Psychology – including supervising Core Role 2 research projects
- Memory (true and false memories) across lifespan
- Face recognition in forensic settings (e.g. police facial composites, identification parades, CCTV)
- Miscarriages of justice (including false confessions)
Who Are We
Dr Adam Mahoney
Dr Adam Mahoney is a Consultant Chartered and Registered Forensic Psychologist who has over 20 years’ experience working in various forensic settings. This includes many years working within the female prison estate as a Psychology Manager. His research and practice-based interests include designing and evaluating gender responsive interventions to offending behaviour and therapeutic to address complex interpersonal trauma. Dr Mahoney’s expertise includes undertaking systematic literature reviews, and he is the author of the trauma focused intervention Compassionate Recovery and Neurological Empowerment (CRANE). Mahoney, et al (2022) https://doi.org/10.37576/abuse.2022.037]. He is currently the Chair of the Division of Forensic Psychology -Scotland. DFP Scotland | BPS
Email: a.mahoney@napier.ac.uk
Associate Professor Marc Kozlowski
My focus is on professional development and professional practice within forensic psychology. I am an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and I am a Chartered Forensic Psychologist, with membership of the Division of Forensic Psychology. I am also on the BPS’s Directory of Expert Witnesses and on the BPS’s Register of Applied Psychology Practice Supervisors. I am accredited by the Risk Management Authority to write Risk Assessment Reports for the High Court under Section 210C of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003.
My areas of specialism within forensic psychology practice are the assessment, treatment, and management of offenders who have been diagnosed with personality disorders (although we now tend to think of this population more as people who are survivors of trauma of various kinds), and of offenders who have perpetrated intimate partner violence. I take a keen interest in qualitative research in many areas of forensic psychology from which I find that we can better understand the lived experience of both those who offend and those who work with offenders.
Email: m.kozlowski@napier.ac.uk
Dr Alex McIntyre
Email: A.McIntyre@napier.ac.uk
Dr Faye Skelton
My interests broadly encompass the psychology of evidence, and miscarriages of justice. This includes memory and face perception in forensic settings, for example eyewitness memory, identification of perpetrators, and the implications of errors in these contexts. I have published widely in the area of police facial composites, focusing on optimising facial composite software and witness interviews to achieve the most accurate facial composite images. More recently I have been researching experiences of miscarriages of justice, interviewing people who have been wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.
I enjoy taking my research out to the public and have written and performed shows for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, multiple UK science festivals, Skeptics societies and other specialist groups, as well as contributions to radio, podcasts, and writing for The Conversation.
Email: f.skelton@napier.ac.uk
Dr Marina Wimmer
I am interested in how our mind deals with visual ambiguities, why people perceive stimuli in different ways and their link to creativity and cognitive flexibility. I am also interested in mental imagery (“seeing” in our mind) and false memories (remembering events differently than they have happened or remembering events that have never happened) in both children and adults.
I am the Associate Editor for the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Member of the ESRC Peer Review College, Carnegie Assessment Panel Member, Member of the Experimental Psychology Society.
I have founded and co-lead the Centre for Mind, Creativity, and Environment Research (CEDAR). CEDAR addresses how humans creatively and cognitively flexibly respond to environmental changes and applies this understanding to the design of the built environment, software engineering, and machine learning.
Email: m.wimmer@napier.acuk
Dr Rory MacLean
Email: r.maclean@napier.ac.uk
Dr Michael Stirrat
Email: m.stirrat@napier.ac.uk
Post Graduate Research Students
Mr Niall Buchanan
I am a final year PhD student at Edinburgh Napier, my research focus is on online sexual harassment behaviours. I have been researching online sexual harassment for the past 4 years and have co-authored a research paper on the development of a scale measuring online sexual harassment. I am currently researching perpetrators of online abuse, examining the factors which lead people towards deviant behaviour online, and also hope to identify different types of perpetrators of online sexual harassment.
Email: n.buchanan@napier.ac.uk
Ms Estella Munro
My research interest include neuropsychological risk factors of IPV perpetration, psychopathy and treatment effectiveness, female offending and their treatment within the CJS (Double deviance) and the Dark Triad.
Email: e.munro@napier.ac.uk