Meet Our Mentors

Below you will find biographical information about each mentor including his/her area of specialty. You can use this information to determine which mentor may be best suited to respond to your question(s). Our mentors are divided into categories to facilitate finding the best mentor for your questions. We have mentors in the following areas: Forensic and Non-Forensic.

Please check our Interesting FAQ’s page first before contacting a mentor. If you find that the FAQ page has not provided answers to your questions, then feel free to contact one of our mentors.

If you would like to become a mentor, or are interested in finding out more information about the Mentorship Committee, please contact Tara Mitchell (tmitchel@lhup.edu).

Forensic Mentors

Solomon Fulero (solomon.fulero@sinclair.edu)

Dr. Solomon Fulero is both a practicing attorney and a psychologist.  Dr. Fulero received his Ph.D. in social psychology and his law degree from the University of Oregon in August 1979 and December 1979 respectively, and a respecialization certificate in clinical psychology from Wright State University in June 1988.  He is Professor and former Chair of Psychology at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio and Clinical Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Wright State University in Dayton.  Dr. Fulero maintains private practices in both psychology and law, and is a frequent expert witness on matters pertaining to legal psychology, in both social/experimental (eyewitness testimony, interrogations and confessions, pretrial publicity, etc.) and clinical (competency, sanity, sexual predator status, competency to waive Miranda rights, etc.) areas. His work on mental retardation, suggestibility, and confessions was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia.   He is the co-author of the Wadsworth/Thomson textbook Forensic Psychology, Second Edition, published in July 2004, as well as numerous scholarly articles in both psychology journals and law reviews. Dr. Fulero is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.  He has been on the Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), was the APLS representative to the governing Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association in 1999-2002, was a member of the APA Committee on Legal Issues from 2000-2003 (chair in 2002-2003), and was President of AP-LS in 2003-2004.

Norman Poythress (poythress@fmhi.usf.edu)

Dr. Poythress completed his undergraduate work at Indiana University in 1969 and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Texas in 1977.  From 1977 to 1990 he worked in clinical forensic practice, mainly conducting evaluations for criminal courts such as competence to stand trial and criminal responsibility; relatedly, he is coauthor with Melton, Petrila and Slobogin (1997) of "Psychological Evaluations for the Courts: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Lawyers" (2nd ed., Guilford Press).

He is currently a Professor in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the University of South Florida where he has been on faculty since 1990. His research interests have included the competency of mentally individuals to participate in the legal process,  procedural justice perceptions of alternative courtroom models for malpractice dispute resolution, and mental health courts.  His current research interests focus on the evaluation of self-report measures of psychopathy and investigations of subtypes of psychopathy.

 

Marnie Rice (riceme@mcmaster.ca)

Dr. Rice is the Scientific Director of the Centre for the Study of Aggression and Mental Disorder and is the former Director of the Research Department of the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene where she continues her research part-time.  She is also Part-time Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at Queen's University.  She has been awarded several research grants and has over one hundred publications including four coauthored books on the topics of violent and criminal behavior, sex offenders, psychopaths and arson. Dr. Rice obtained her honours B.A. in Psychology from McMaster University; a Master's Degree from the University of Toronto; and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from York University. She began working at the maximum security division of the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene in 1975 as the psychologist on a behavioural unit, joined the Research Department in 1980, and was the  Director from 1988 until the end of March 2002.  Her current areas of research interest include interpersonal violence, sex offending, firesetting, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder, evolutionary approaches to forensic psychiatry, prediction and management of violent behaviour, violence in institutions.

Non-Forensic Mentors  

Bette L. Bottoms (bbottoms@uic.edu)

 Dr. Bette L. Bottoms received a bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia, a Master’s Degree in Cognitive Psychology from The University of Denver, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her graduate training and her current research interests are broad (a mix of cognitive, developmental, social, and even a little community and clinical psychology), but her work then and now is unified by the theme of children, psychology, and law. Specifically, she studies the accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony, techniques to improve children’s reports of past events, jurors’ perceptions of children’s testimony, and various issues related to child abuse. Dr. Bottoms is now a Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She’s very active in the American Psychological Association, especially Division 41 (AP-LS) and Division 37 (Child, Youth, and Family Services), of which she’ll be President in 2005.

 

John C. (Jack) Brigham (brigham@psy.fsu.edu)

Dr. Brigham did his undergraduate work at Duke University and received a Ph. D. in Social-Personality Psychology in 1969 from the University of Colorado, where he worked primarily with Keith Davis and Stuart Cook.  He took a job as an Assistant Professor in a brand-new Social Psychology program at Florida State University where, much to his surprise, he has remained ever since.  He officially retired from the university and became Professor Emeritus at the end of 2004, though he is still actively involved in research and consulting.   There weren’t any Psychology-Law Ph.D. programs when he was in graduate school; he became interested in psycholegal issues through his interest in stereotypes and prejudice, and how these concepts might apply in an important real-world situation, the legal system.  His research interests have centered on the factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness memory, especially in cross-race situations.  In addition to teaching and research, he has served as an expert witness.  He has also given workshops to groups of attorneys and groups of judges in an attempt to disseminate information in places where it may have the most applicability.  He considers his involvement in AP-LS as one of the most personally and professionally rewarding aspects of his career.  He served as Secretary-Treasurer, Treasurer, Council Representative, and President of AP-LS over the years and thinks that AP-LS can be an invaluable source of information for those interested in Psychology-Law issues, particularly those who have not had the opportunity for much formal training in the area.
 

Solomon Fulero (solomon.fulero@sinclair.edu)

Dr. Solomon Fulero is both a practicing attorney and a psychologist.  Dr. Fulero received his Ph.D. in social psychology and his law degree from the University of Oregon in August 1979 and December 1979 respectively, and a respecialization certificate in clinical psychology from Wright State University in June 1988.  He is Professor and former Chair of Psychology at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio and Clinical Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Wright State University in Dayton.  Dr. Fulero maintains private practices in both psychology and law, and is a frequent expert witness on matters pertaining to legal psychology, in both social/experimental (eyewitness testimony, interrogations and confessions, pretrial publicity, etc.) and clinical (competency, sanity, sexual predator status, competency to waive Miranda rights, etc.) areas. His work on mental retardation, suggestibility, and confessions was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia.   He is the co-author of the Wadsworth/Thomson textbook Forensic Psychology, Second Edition, published in July 2004, as well as numerous scholarly articles in both psychology journals and law reviews. Dr. Fulero is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.  He has been on the Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (APLS), was the APLS representative to the governing Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association in 1999-2002, was a member of the APA Committee on Legal Issues from 2000-2003 (chair in 2002-2003), and was President of APLS  in 2003-2004.

Dorothy Marsil (dmarsil@kennesaw.edu)

Dr. Marsil earned her undergraduate psychology degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and her master's degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. In 2003, she earned her PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Marsil's broad academic training includes cognitive, developmental, and social psychology, as well as legal research. In 2005 she joined the psychology faculty of Kennesaw State University, known for their commitment to undergraduate teaching and research. Her primary research interests are in juror decision making and interpersonal violence, particularly as they relate to children, youth, and older persons. Dr. Marsil has a very active research lab where undergraduates are engaged in the research process from collecting data to designing, implementing and presenting their own studies. She facilitates a "Getting into Graduate School in Psychology and Law" workshop each year at Kennesaw State University and is very interested in mentoring undergraduates who want to pursue graduate training in psychology and law. Dr. Marsil incorporates her real world experience from her work as a trial consultant into her research, teaching, and mentoring. She also testifies as an expert witness primarily in cases involving child sexual abuse. Dr. Marsil has published articles in several peer reviewed psychology and legal journals and her work on child witness policy has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, Sixth Circuit in Danner v. Motley. She is an active member of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychology - Law Society, and the Association for Psychological Science.

Gary Moran (Blueagle40@aol.com)

Dr. Moran received his Ph.D. in psychology at Catholic University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen-the Netherlands in 1964.  He is now retired from Florida International University where he was the jurywork/consulting member of his group in addition to taking more traditional scholarly pursuits. His current interests involve consulting with attorneys in private practice, public defenders, etc. who are interested in a rather narrow range of services such as pretrial surveys, changes of venue procedures, trial simulations. He is also currently a principal in Juritactics II, a Miami based litigation consulting firm.

Michael Saks (Michael.Saks@asu.edu)

Dr. Michael Saks has a Ph.D. in social psychology from Ohio State and an MSL from Yale Law School.  He has been a professor of psychology at Boston College, and a professor of law at the University of Iowa and currently at the Arizona State University. He has been president of AP-LS and editor of Law & Human Behavior.  He studies principal areas of the intersection of psychology and the law:  1) Decision-making in the legal process, especially decision-making by judges and juries, 2) The uses of scientific and other expert evidence in the law, and 3) The "behavior" of the litigation system, especially systems analysis of the tort litigation system and the evaluation of proposed reforms in light of data on the actual behavior of the system.

Lawrence Wrightsman (wrights@ku.edu)

Dr. Wrightsman received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1959.  He is now a Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas.  Around the mid-1970s, he, like a number of other social psychologists, shifted his research focus to legal issues.  His initial research was on judicial decision-making.  He also continued to write textbooks and scholarly books, but shifted from personality and social psychology to psychology and the law. His current research is on two topics: the psychology of entrapment and the psychology of decision making by the Supreme Court.