The Science and Practice of Expert Witnesses

Margaret Bull Kovera, PhD, is a presidential scholar and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Minnesota. For over twenty years, she has conducted research on expert evidence, jury decision-making, and eyewitness identification. Her research on these topics has been published in Law and Human Behavior, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Applied Cognitive Psychology, and Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. She is a past-president of the American Psychology-Law Society and former editor-in-chief of Law and Human Behavior, the premier outlet for scholarship in psychology and law. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychology-Law Society (APLS), the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). She is the recipient of the 2018 APLS Outstanding Book Award for The Psychology of Juries. She regularly serves as an expert witness in cases involving eyewitness identification.

Lora M. Levett, PhD, is an associate professor of criminology at the University of Florida. She received her PhD from Florida International University in legal psychology with a minor in social psychology in 2005. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation for her research on expert evidence, jury decision making, and eyewitness identification. Her work has appeared in Law and Human Behavior, Psychology,Public Policy, and Law, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, and other peer reviewed and law review outlets. She has consulted as an expert witness, educating attorneys, judges, and jurors about eyewitness identification evidence.