Photo of Joanna Pozzulo

Joanna Pozzulo

Director

Degrees:Ph.D. (Queen's)
Email:joanna.pozzulo@carleton.ca

Keywords: child eyewitness, memory, police procedure, lineup, juror decision-making

Research Interests

Dr. Pozzulo is passionate about teaching in the area of mental health. New for Fall 2020, Dr. Pozzulo has created the capstone course for the Stream in Mental Health and Well-Being as part of the B.A. Honours Psychology Program. PSYC 4330: Community Mental Health focuses on students developing practical mental health and well-being skills, and will provide students with experiential learning opportunities in departments across campus that deliver mental health programs. Additionally, Dr. Pozzulo is currently developing the capstone course for the concentration in mental health and well-being at the graduate level.

The goal of Dr. Pozzulo’s research is to understand how memory in the applied context of witnessing crime differs developmentally and the cognitive/social processes eyewitnesses engage to recall the event and recognize the culprit. On an applied level, Dr. Pozzulo is interested in developing age-appropriate identification procedures that police can use with eyewitnesses. Dr. Pozzulo is focused on evidence-based, best practices for child eyewitness identification with the aim of reducing wrongful conviction.

As a secondary line of research, Dr. Pozzulo is interested in the factors that influence perceptions of historical cases of sexual misconduct within a juror-decision-making paradigm.

Selected Publications

Pozzulo, J.D., Pica, E., & Sheahan, C. (Eds.). (2020). Memory and Sexual Misconduct: Psychological Research for Criminal Justice. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group. (360pp)

 Pozzulo, J.D., & Bennell, C. (Eds.). (2018). Working with Trauma-Exposed Children and Adolescents: Evidence-Based and Age-Appropriate Practices. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group. (340pp)

Pozzulo, J.D. (2016). Describing and Identifying Perpetrators: The Young Eyewitness. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. (232pp)

Thompson, L. E., Pozzulo, J., Pratt, K. J., Sheahan, C. L., Fraser, B. M., & Deweyert, C. E.(2020). Testing a new lineup procedure with children: The elimination with wildcard. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

Pica, E., Sheahan, C.L., Pozzulo, J., & Bennell, C. (2020). Guns, gloves, and tasers: Perceptions of police officers and their use of weapon as a function of race and gender. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-020-09365-3

Pica, E., Thompson, L.E., Pozzulo, J., & Sheahan, C.L. (2019). Perceptions of police conduct when race and gender are considered. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-019-09346-1

Pica, E., Pozzulo, J., & Sheahan, C. (2019). Examining mock jurors’ perceptions of intimate partner violence factors. Partner Abuse, 10(4), 391-408. https://doi.org/10.1891/1946-6560.10.4.391