Professor Heather D. Flowe PhD

PhD in Experimental Psychology, University of California, San Diego

Heather’s PhD in Experimental Psychology was awarded by the University of California, San Diego. After a University of California Faculty Fellowship, she joined the University of Leicester as a Lecturer in Forensic Psychology. She served as the Chair of the University Ethics Committee, her work was featured in a REF 2014 Impact Case Study, and she served as Impact Case Study Coordinator for Psychology. She then joined Loughborough University as a Senior Lecturer, and as Deputy Associate Dean (Enterprise) in the School of Sport, Exercise, and Health Sciences, where she was primarily responsible for Impact Case Study development for more than 200 academic staff, and the undergraduate placement programme.

Heather has been awarded research grants worth over £3.4 million. Her research is presently sponsored by the Global Challenges Research Fund (ESRC, and the AHRC). Past research sponsors have included the British Academy, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Health Foundation, the Nuffield Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and Alcohol Research, UK.  Her work has been covered in the media, including the Guardian, Science Daily, the BBC, Criminal Justice and Law Weekly, and other international outlets, and she has had an impact on policy in the US and the UK.

She is presently on a British Academy Midcareer Fellowship for the academic year 2019-2020 to study victim memory retrieval processes during police interviews.

Heather is Associate Editor for Applied Cognitive Psychology, a member of the Editorial Board for Psychology Public Policy and Law, and Consulting Editor for Cognitive Research in the Public Interest.

Heather is also a member of the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund Peer Review College, and also reviews proposals from the British Academy, the ESRC, the Canadian

Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Irish Research Council, among others.

Heather’s courses are consistently rated highly by students, and by peer evaluation. She was awarded a Distinguished Teaching award from the University of California San Diego Academic Senate. More than 55 of her MSc in Forensic and Legal Psychology students and 13 of her MSc Psychology Research Methods students have successfully completed.

Heather currently teaches modules and supervise students on the Forensic Psychology Practice Doctorate course, and supervises students on the MSc Psychology course.

Heather has also served as sole convenor and assessor for 11 different undergraduate modules, including: Legal Psychology, Criminal Psychology, Criminology, Social Psychology, Introduction to Social Psychology, Introduction to Statistics, Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Statistics/SPSS Research Methods Lab; Advanced Data Analysis; Tests and Measurement; Clinical Psychology

Heather was the Course Director for the MSc Assessment and Treatment of Sex Offenders from 2008-2012.

Heather is the external examiner for the MSc in Forensic Psychology at the University of Gloucester since 2017.

Professor Heather Flowe supervises projects on applied cognition. Past and present projects include:

• eyewitness identification
• forensic face matching
• face recognition
• remembering rape and other traumatic events
• investigative interviewing
• alcohol and other drugs on memory
• rape case adjudication
• prosecutorial decision making
• risk taking in women
• hormones and behavior
• trauma interventions
• metacognition

Heather would be pleased to hear from prospective PhD students. She also enjoys working with undergraduate and MSc students. Nearly all of her publications have included student authors.

Heather is also pleased to host postdoctoral students, faculty, and other visitors. Recent lab visitors have been from Italy, Pakistan, Australia, Kenya, and the United States.

Heather currently has two main lines of research:

Sexual Violence

Heather is investigating the effects of alcohol on memory reporting, testing methods of preserving and protecting the memory evidence of rape complainants. She also evaluates the role of victim and eyewitness testimony in case investigations and prosecutions. In addition to projects in the UK and the US, Heather also has projects in the global south, innovating solutions to gathering survivor testimony in documenting and investigating sexual violence cases in low resource environments, primarily with the Wangu Kanja Foundation. Heather is the PI for the UKRI GCRF Rights for Time Network+.

ID Parades

Heather and her colleagues are innovating new criminal identification procedures, such as 3D interactive lineups to improve the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness identification. This work seeks to address fundamental questions such as how faces are represented in long-term memory and effective cues for enhancing memory retrieval. This line of research also considers the effects of own race bias, alcohol intoxication, and development on identifications.

Research Funding

Heather has attracted over £3.4 million for her research. Current research projects are supported by the ESRC and the AHRC.