psychology
Dr. Elizabeth Spruin, Founder and Director
Liz is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and an Investigative Psychologist within the School of Psychology, Politics and Sociology. Liz has had extensive experience in working with forensic and vulnerable populations (e.g. prison populations, complex need individuals, victims of domestic abuse) and with external organisations and partners, such as prisons, secure mental health hospitals and women refuges. Since 2016, she has been a pioneer in evidencing the use of specially trained dogs to support vulnerable people in the UK criminal justice system. In 2017, Liz founded the Justice Support Dogs International (JSDI) Lab, with the vision of promoting the use of specially trained dogs to help vulnerable people during legal proceedings and to build an evidence base for these practices.
Dr. Katarina Mozova, Deputy Director
Katarina is a Lecturer in Policing within the School of Law, Criminal Justice, and Computing. She has vast experience working with vulnerable populations, including offenders in prison and community, complex need individuals in the community, domestic abuse victims, youth offenders and school pupils. Since 2016, Katarina has been working alongside Liz to help develop the use of specially trained dogs for vulnerable people in the UK criminal justice system. As Deputy Director, she is also currently working to develop best practice guidelines for these practices.
Ms Susanna Mitchell, Executive Director
Susanna has been a senior crown prosecutor for the CPS for 10 years, with the last 4 of those years, working on the rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) unit, dealing with cases involving the most vulnerable of victims and witnesses. In 2015, Susanna joined the Policing Department within the School of Law, Criminal Justice, and Computing. She has experience of all types of criminal cases but specialised in those involving rape and sexual offences. Improving the criminal justice system for vulnerable victims is one of her key areas of interest, and she is currently completing her PhD in the experience of the criminal justice system for child victims of sexual abuse.
Dr. Tammy Dempster, Researcher
Tammy has a PhD in cognitive neuropsychology, although her interests and experience cover a large number of fields in psychology. She has experience of conducting quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research within and across multiple areas of psychology (e.g., social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, health psychology). In 2017, Tammy joined JSDI Lab, her role is to assist in the day to day running of the various research projects the Lab is working on.
Philip completed his PhD in cognitive neuropsychology, specialising in face recognition and EEG. He has experience in a wide range of psychology tools and technical software and is adept with programming, experimental methodology, quantitative statistics and website maintenance.