Fallible Forensics: Interview with Expert Dr. Jeff Kukucka

Dr. Jeff Kukucka is a professor of psychology whose work aims to understand and prevent forensic science errors. He regularly testifies as an expert witness, trains various legal audiences, and works with forensic scientists to strengthen crime lab procedures. Make sure to tune in and listen to this episode of ‘How Dr. K Ruined Science For Us’. Just kidding, we LOVE Dr. K. However, he did kind of bust the bubble of the long-held belief that forensic science is 100% reliable and infallible. Is it possible that forensic science isn’t as ‘sciency’ as we all thought and has actually lead to innocent people being convicted of crimes they didn't commit? Well, stick around as Dr. K walks us through new research and the approaches to identifying and addressing human bias in forensic science.

 

More about our Honored Guest:

Dr. Kukucka is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Towson University. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Loyola College in Maryland. As an undergraduate, he became involved in research on conformity in eyewitness memory with Dr. Kerri Goodwin (Towson University) and research on child forensic interviewing and metacognition with Dr. Maggie Bruck (Johns Hopkins Medical Institute). He then graduated from the Ph.D. Program in Psychology & Law at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he worked primarily under Dr. Saul Kassin (John Jay College of Criminal Justice). Dr. Kukucka is broadly interested in the psychological causes and consequences of wrongful convictions in the criminal legal system, with a particular focus on forensic science errors, post-exoneration adjustment, cognitive biases, and police interrogations.

 

Additional Links:

Reasonable Doubt | Psychology Today

With George Floyd, a Raging Debate Over Bias in the Science of Death - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Jeff Kukucka | Towson University

 

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​​Art for the podcast was created by Kelly Steen. Editing/Production for the podcast by Bltzwolff 

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