Professor Amina Memon
Email: Amina.Memon@rhul.ac.uk
Click here for CV
Bio: Amina Memon is a highly skilled researcher and teacher with 25 years of expertise in the field of Applied Cognitive and Social Psychology. Her specialist areas are eyewitness testimony, investigative interviewing and biases in decision-making. A distinctive flavor of her work has been her close working relationship with policy makers and practitioners in the field of policing, social work and the law. Her work on the Cognitive Interview has had a major impact both nationally and internationally on the way in which police gather information from witnesses. She has made significant contributions to the development and assessment of video identification parades, now being used in over 30 police forces across the UK.
Prof Memon’s applied research is aimed at identifying methods for improving justice for victims and witnesses. Current research projects including work on eyewitness identification, restorative justice, the reliability and credibility of evidence from vulnerable groups, best practice in questioning child witnesses and the reliability of evidence from older adult witnesses.
Prof Memon is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Royal Society of Arts and the Association for Psychological Science. She recently completed a Masters degree in Human Rights at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is a Trustee for the Centre for the Study of Emotion and the Law (CSEL) and on the board of Asylum Aid. She volunteers at Fair Trials International and Reprieve. She is part of the Inspiring the future mentoring scheme, the Women’s Action Network (Amnesty International) and an events organiser for the British Science Association.
Prof Memon has been successful in obtaining research funds from charities and public funding bodies and has collaborated with scientists across the globe. In addition to her academic work, she devotes time to the transfer of knowledge. She has written over 100 scientific papers including reports and articles directed at specific groups (e.g. lawyers, members of the public). She has received media coverage and her expert opinion has been sought on numerous civil (family court) and criminal cases in Scotland and England. She has been contributing to professional development and training of the judiciary in Scotland since 2002 and is an expert in investigative interviewing.
