Professor Heather D. Flowe
Biography
I am American, and was raised in several different states (e.g., Florida, Washington, Alabama, California, northern and southern, Michigan). My PhD is in Experimental Psychology, and was funded by the National Science Foundation and awarded by the University of California, San Diego. My PhD thesis was on lineup identification, my masters was on false rape accusations, and my postdoc, which was funded by a University of California Faculty Fellowship award, was on prosecutorial decision making and eyewitness identification in felony cases, including rape. Broadly speaking, I still focus on these topics.
After my fellowship, I crossed the pond to join the University of Leicester as an Assistant Professor in Forensic Psychology in the UK, which was 12 very long years ago. At UoL, I led the Assessment and Treatment of Sex Offenders masters programme, taught on the masters in Forensic Psychology, and developed a BA in Applied Psychology. I chaired the University Ethics Committee, had responsibility for 5 College Ethics Committees, my research was a REF 2014 Impact Case Study. I then joined Loughborough University as an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer in UK parlance), where I served as Deputy Associate Dean in the School of Sport, Exercise, and Health Sciences, where I led Impact Case Study development for more than 200 academic staff.
I’m now a Professor of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, in the School of Psychology, which is a top tier research-intensive university where I conduct research and teach. I serve as Director of Global Engagement for the College of Life and Environmental sciences, am Co-Director (Victims and Vulnerability) of the Centre for Crime, Justice, and Policing, and co-lead the Applied Memory Laboratory with Dr Melissa Colloff.
I am PI for the GCRF UKRI Rights for Time, Time for Rights Research Network+, which supports interdisciplinary research on humanitarian protection challenges in the Middle East and Africa.
I have been awarded research grants worth over £4 million. My research is presently sponsored by the Global Challenges Research Fund, the ESRC, the Home Office, and the AHRC. Previous research sponsors have included the British Academy, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Nuffield Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and Alcohol Research, UK. I have authored more than 70 publications, most as first or last author and nearly all with student authors, including undergraduates. My work has been featured in the media, such as the Guardian, Science Daily, the BBC, Criminal Justice and Law Weekly, and in international outlets, and has had an impact on policy in the US and the UK.
I was a British Academy Mid career Fellow for the academic year 2019-2020, studying victim memory retrieval processes during police interviews.
I am 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.
I am a member of the ESRC Grant Assessment Panel (GAP, Panel A), UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund Peer Review College, and also review proposals from the British Academy, the ESRC, the Canadian Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Irish Research Council, among others.