Professor Tony Ward

Head of School

Professor Ward is a clinical psychologist by training and has been working in the clinical and forensic field since 1987...

Criminal and forensic psychology

Academic Staff

Professor John McClure

Deputy Head of School

My research interests focus on social perception and also judgment and decision making. This includes people’s explanations (attributions) for other people’s actions; Factors that make people less fatalistic about events; Biases such as unrealistic optimism; and Risk judgments and decision making...

Social judgment and personality

Natasha Buist

My responsibilities are running the laboratories for all first year psychology students. I oversee the tutors and tutoring and conduct some of the administration work involved in the first year.

Experimental Analysis of Behaviour

Dr Deirdre Brown

Lecturer

My research interests relate to different domains of development in children.  My primary research involvement relates to children’s eyewitness testimony, and specifically, interview techniques that may support them in recalling and reporting their experiences, without compromising the accuracy or reliability of their evidence. 

Child clinical and developmental psychology

Rachael Collie

Assistant Lecturer

I am interested in understanding criminal behaviour, particularly violent criminal behaviour, and psychological interventions to reduce crime and violence...

Criminal Justice Psychology, Clinical Psychology

Dr Joyce Colussi-Mas

Research Fellow

My research interests focus on the neurobiology of drug addiction. My current work combines behavioural and neurochemical approaches to determine the cerebral mechanisms and the brain structures involved in the effects of MDMA (ecstasy).

Neurochemistry and drug addiction

Dr Matt Crawford

Senior Lecturer

My primary research interests reside in the area of social inference and social perception of individuals (i.e., impression formation) and the perception of social groups...

Social Cognition; Impression Formation; Group Perception; Decision-Making

Dr Ronald Fischer

Senior Lecturer

I am interested in culture and its effects on our attitudes and behaviour. Some of the questions I am asking are what people perceive as fair in different cultures, how individuals react to injustice in different cultures and whether psychological research methods can be used everywhere in the world...

Cross-cultural psychology, organisational psychology, organisational justice, cross-cultural research methods

Professor Maryanne Garry

I am interested in how we can come to believe we saw or did something that we never did, and how we decide whether our memories are true or false...

Real-life memory distortions, especially as they apply to legal settings

Dr Matthew Gerrie

Research Fellow

I study human memory errors and their impact on the psychology of law. In particular, I am interested in how witnesses remember (and sometimes misremember) details from a crime scene and factors that lead to eyewitness misidentification

Cognitive Psychology, Psychology-Law, Memory, Eyewitness Testimony, Eyewitness Identification

Dave Gittings

Lecturer

Timing, Drug Addiction

Dr Gina Grimshaw

Senior Lecturer

I am interested in interactions between cognition and emotion, studied from a neuropsychological perspective.

Cognition and Emotion, Emotional Prosody, Hemispheric Specialization, Handedness

Associate Professor David Harper

I am interested in comparing the performance of humans and non-human species on various discrimination and learning tasks as well as examining the neural bases of performance in these tasks...

Comparative cognition, behavioural pharmacology, & the experimental analysis of behaviour

Dr Maree Hunt

Senior Lecturer

My current areas of interest within the experimental analysis of behaviour focus on human
behaviour and animal analogues of complex human behaviours and include research on
impulsivity, gambling, establishing operations and evaluative conditioning.

Experimental & applied analysis of behaviour

Dr Sue Jackson

Senior Lecturer

My research areas focus primarily on young people, gender and sexuality issues, including sexual health...

Gender & critical psychology, clinical child/adolescent psychology, girl culture

Dr Todd Jones

Senior Lecturer

My research focuses primarily on human memory, and the theoretical framework for my research is based on dual-process theories of memory...

Cognitive psychology, human memory, memory function in normal aging

Associate Professor Paul Jose

My chief research interests concern how children and adolescents cope with the problems in their lives. I assess three aspects of this dynamic process--stress, coping, and adjustment-- and examine their interrelationships at one point in time or longitudinally...

Social development, adolescent stress and coping, children's acquisition of academic skills, cross-cultural research on social development

Wendy Kelly

Teaching Clinician

My role within the clinical programme is to provide a practical focus for the many skills that clinicians need in the areas of interviewing, assessment and therapy. I also organise student placements and liaise with supervisors throughout...

Professor James Liu

Deputy Director CACR

My interests centre in two areas within social psychology: social identity and intergroup relations, and cultural and cross-cultural psychology...

Social identity and intergroup relations, cultural and cross-cultural psychology, action research and political psychology

Dr Jason Low

Senior Lecturer

My scientific interests encompass topics on child cognition (imaginative reasoning, theory of mind, event knowledge & memory, problem solving in autism, and information processing in applied contexts such as media). I am also interested in the origins of ...

Child Cognition and Comparative Cognition

Barbara Matthews

Senior Supervising Psychologist

My role within the clinical programme is to provide clinical students and interns...

Victoria Psychology Clinic

Associate Professor John McDowall

My research interests are in the areas of implicit memory and implicit learning. My current work includes a study of these processes in individuals suffering from clinical depression and schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Clinical Psychology, Memory

Dr Taciano L. Milfont

Lecturer

My research primarily lies within the general area of applied psychology. I am particularly interested in how social-psychological theories and methods can promote sustainable behaviours and improve human well-being.

Angelique O'Connell

Senior Supervising Psychologist

I completed my Masters and Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Psychology at Victoria University.  I have worked primarily within public health and educational settings...

Victoria Psychology Clinic

Gaynor Parkin

Teaching Clinician

Research Specialties: Cognitive behavioural therapy

Clinical Psychology

Associate Professor Devon Polaschek

Postgraduate Coordinator

• Theory, intervention, and intervention evaluation with serious violent and sexual offenders.
• Cognitive experimental approaches to assessment in offenders

Criminal Justice Psychology

Associate Professor Karen Salmon

Clinical Director

In particular, I am interested in the ways that parents talk with their young children about their past and upcoming experiences and how this influences a number of aspects of the child’s development...

Child clinical and developmental psychology

Professor Susan Schenk

I am interested in studying the factors that contribute to the initiation, maintenance and relapse to drug abuse. Most of my work has been done in rats and has measured effects of MDMA. Future studies may focus on additional drugs of abuse...

Behavioural, pharmacology and addiction

Dr Marc Wilson

Broadly, I am interested in the application of social psychological theory to important social issues.

Social and political psychology

Professor Colleen Ward

Director CACR

At the most general level I am interested in how culture affects human behaviour and experience...

Cross-cultural psychology; acculturation and adaptation; intergroup perceptions and relations

Associate Professor Ann Weatherall

Graduate Coordinator

My research lies within the general area of social psychology. I am particularly interested in
the psychology of gender, language and social psychology, and discursive social
psychology.

Critical social psychology, feminist psychology, sex/gender and sexuality, talk-in-interaction and discourse

Dr Carolyn Wilshire

Senior Lecturer

My main research area is the cognitive neuropsychology of language (aphasia).   My research examines the language of aphasic people, and aims to interpret their problems in the context of current cognitive theories.

Neuropsychology, cognitive neuropsychology, language and cognition