Welcome to the March 2026
American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) Newsletter
Our monthly Newsletter provides information about activities, upcoming events, and resources to connect the psychology-law community.
AP-LS aspires to excel as a valuable, effective, and influential organization advancing the science of psychology-law and the translation of psychology-law knowledge into practice and policy.
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Register for Preconference Workshops
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Kick off the AP-LS 2026 conference by attending a preconference workshop on Wednesday, March 11th! Join us for half or full day workshops on psychology and law considerations for aging defendants, mental state at the time of the offense, AI, applications of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), combating bias, and correctional psychology. Check out all the details and register here: https://buff.ly/x3GF2WP
Email the CE Committee Chairs with any questions: ce@ap-ls.org
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Building Your Professional and Personal Life: Considerations for Saying “Yes” and Saying “No.”
Early Career Professionals Committee Sponsored Session
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Join the Early Career Professionals Committee at the upcoming AP-LS conference for their sponsored session at 4:10pm on Saturday in Tuscany 2!
Abstract: Early career professionals are faced with a plethora of decisions upon graduation. While the immense career opportunities awaiting us may be exciting, knowing which opportunities to accept can be daunting. The current session provides attendees a chance to hear from professionals from across the career span about when they have chosen to say, “yes,” when they have chosen to say, “no,” and how they came to those conclusions amid their emerging professional identities. Discussion panel members will include clinical psychologists, academics, and legal scholars who will speak to a range of choices they have faced during their careers, and the considerations they weighed in the process.
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Legal Update: The “Kavanaugh Stop”: Race, Reasonable Suspicion, and Implicit Bias in Immigration Enforcement
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has recently increased efforts to combat unlawful status in the United States. Their efforts have led to litigation alleging factors related to apparent race or ethnicity do not establish sufficient justification for seizing people. This Legal Update summarizes the Fourth Amendment law around seizures of individuals and describes pending litigation out of California in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo. The Legal Update concludes with research on racial bias in policing and a call for further research. Read more HERE.
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Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Awards
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The TTC is pleased to announce the following winners for our Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring awards:
Deah Quinlivan is the winner of the Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring award.
Cassandra Bailey is the winner of the Early Career Teaching and Mentoring award.
Congratulations!
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2026 Dissertation Award Winners
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Congratulations to our 2026 AP-LS Dissertation Award Winners!
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Dr. Sandy S. Xie (Rutgers University – Newark School of Criminal Justice) received First Place for her dissertation, Perceptions of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Courts: Implications of Bias, Stigma, and Other Factors on Defendant Outcomes. Masked reviewers emphasized the methodological breadth of the three-paper approach to examine bias in expert testimony, stigma toward mental illness, and professional perspectives in neurocriminology., noting that the studies varied in design and goals yet “all work together in combination to create a very strong dissertation.” Reviewers highlighted that the work “advances our knowledge of the use of neuroscientific and mental health information in the court system through a variety of angles,” and underscored the applied implications of examining how expert witness race and mental health stigma shape perceptions and defendant outcomes. Dr. Xie completed this dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Colleen Berryessa.
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Dr. Samantha Rae Bean (Arizona State University) received Second Place for her dissertation, No Numbers, No Problem? How Mock Jurors Award Noneconomic Damages With and Without Numeric Guidance. Masked reviewers highlighted the dissertation’s careful two-study design, which combined secondary data analysis with a preregistered experimental study to examine how jurors make award decisions with and without numerical anchors. They praised the thorough statistical approach, including the use of log transformations to address skewed distributions, and noted that the project extends the literature on external anchors by testing whether individual difference factors exert stronger influence when guidance is absent versus present. Reviewers described the studies as well-designed and analytically detailed, emphasizing that the findings have direct implications for legal policy debates regarding numerical guidance in civil cases. Dr. Bean completed this dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Salerno.
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Dr. Luca Adolfo Tiberi (University of Mons) received Third Place for his dissertation, Multi-channel Assessment of Emotion Recognition in Forensic Inpatients who have Committed Sexual Offenses. Masked reviewers described the dissertation as methodologically innovative in integrating facial, prosodic, and bodily emotion recognition within a single coherent framework applied to a forensic inpatient population. They emphasized that the incorporation of signal detection theory, Bayesian approaches, and process-level indices (i.e., sensitivity, response bias, reaction and reflection time, and perceived task difficulty) represented a substantial methodological advance beyond prior work relying primarily on static facial stimuli and mean accuracy scores. Reviewers further noted the dissertation’s exceptional thoroughness, transparent analytic strategies, and careful attention to ecological and construct validity, describing the work as reflecting a high level of scientific maturity and quality of execution. Dr. Tiberi completed this dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Thierry Pham Hoang and Prof. Audrey Vicenzutto.
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The AP-LS Research Committee is pleased to announce the awardees of the 2025 AP-LS Grant Initiative on Research to Enhance the Impact and Diversification (REID) of Psychology and Law Research. Congratulations to all awardees!
Project PIs: Becky Earhart & Jenny Katsirdakis, Vancouver Island University
Project Title: Facial Recognition as a Mediator of Autistic Differences in Destination Memory
Award: $5,000
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