ADDITIONAL LINKS
Joint appointment in Psychology and Law
What
excites you most about joining the new law school faculty?
My scholarly work on human memory has intersected with the legal field
on such questions as: How accurate is eyewitness testimony? Why do
people end up testifying in court about events that never happened?
Collaborating with social scientists on these kinds of issues has been
a constant in my career, but now I’ll be able to interact with legal
scholars on my own campus. This interdisciplinary focus will strengthen
the contribution and advance us in ways that we are probably not even
anticipating.
Describe your scholarship.
How do humans end up misremembering their past, or even creating entire
events in memory that never happened? My scientific work tries to
understand that process. One goal is that we will reduce the incidence
of misremembering in legal settings and thereby minimize the chances
of false convictions and faulty legal verdicts based on memory.
What are you most
excited about doing in the first years of the law school?
I hope to teach courses on memory and the law that will include both
law students and also students from psychology and other social sciences.
This mix should lead to some exciting discussions.
- Stanford University, Ph.D., 1970
- Stanford University, M.A., Psychology, 1967
- University of California, Los Angeles, B.A. with highest honors, Mathematics and Psychology, 1966
- University of California, Irvine, 2002-present
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- Psychology & Social Behavior, 2002-present
- Criminology, Law & Society, 2002-present
- Cognitive Sciences, 2002-present
- Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, fellow, 2002-present
- Center for Psychology & Law, director, 2005-present
- School of Law, 2007-present
- University of Washington, 1973-2002
- New School University, 1970-73
- National Judicial College, University of Nevada, visiting professor 1975-87 (summers)
- Georgetown University Law Center, visiting professor, 1986
- Psychology and law, human memory, eyewitness testimony, courtroom procedure
- Professor Loftus has published 20 books and more than 400 scientific articles. Her fourth book, Eyewitness Testimony, won a National Media Award from the American Psychological Foundation. One of her most widely read books, The Myth of Repressed Memory, has been translated into numerous foreign languages.
- Professor Loftus has been an expert witness or consultant in hundreds of cases, including the McMartin preschool molestation case, the Hillside Strangler, the Abscam cases, the trial of Oliver North, the trial of the officers accused in the Rodney King beating, the Menendez brothers, the Bosnian War trials in the Hague, the Oklahoma bombing case, and litigation involving Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby and the Duke University Lacrosse players. She is the highest-ranking woman on the Review of General Psychology’s list of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.
- University of Oslo, Norway, honoris causa, 2008
- University of Haifa, Israel, doctor of philosophy, honoris causa, 2005
- University of Portsmouth, England, honorary doctor of science, 1998
- City University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, honorary doctor of laws, 1994
- Leiden University, The Netherlands, doctorate honoris causa, 1990
- Miami University (Ohio), honorary doctor of science, 1982
- National Academy of Sciences
- Association for Psychological Science (formerly American Psychological Society), president, 1998-99
- Western Psychological Association, president, 1984, 2004-2005
- Psychonomic Society, governing board, 1990-1995
- Society of Experimental Psychologists, 1990-
- British Psychological Society, lifetime member
- Royal Society of Edinburgh, lifetime corresponding fellow
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- American Philosophical Society