Meet Our Team
Dr Meaghan Danby
Meaghan is a Lecturer and Researcher in Deakin University’s School of Psychology. Her research specialises in interviewing techniques to appropriately support young children’s memory during police interviews. She completed her PhD examining child interviewing strategies in 2016. Since then, she has continued to research techniques that encourage full and accurate accounts from children, as well as other related issues such as the credibility of child witnesses, and adult interviewing techniques. Dr Danby is especially passionate about the interviewing of vulnerable witnesses, including children, adolescents, and people with complex communication needs. She enjoys supervising PhD students in these fields.
Dr Danby has worked with several Australian Police Forces previously, conducting research and training in partnership with them. Dr Danby is an experienced interview trainer who has worked nationally and internationally to deliver expert training on interviewing. She enjoys teaching face-to-face sessions with professional interviewers. She regularly delivers lessons on human memory, child development, and best-practice questioning techniques for vulnerable witnesses. Dr Danby also provides individualised feedback to professional interviewers to assist with their development.
See more about Meaghan’s work by clicking here.
Dr Stefanie Sharman
Dr Stefanie Sharman is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Deakin University. Dr Sharman has investigated memory in her research for over 20 years. Her initial work examined how people could come to believe that events they had only imagined actually occurred in childhood. Since moving to Deakin University in 2009, Dr Sharman’s focus changed from people’s false memories for events they had not experienced, to people’s accurate memories for events that they had experienced as witnesses or victims. Currently, she is examining adults’ memories for repeated events in a range of situations, such as witnessed events and dietary recall. Dr Sharman has supervised 9 PhD and DPsyc students, and over 60 Honours and Graduate Diploma students.
See more about Stef’s works by clicking here
PhD STUDENTS
Jacquie Vroom – Jacquie is completing her PhD investigating pre-substantive rapport building strategies utilised during child forensic interviews. Her first study is a systematic mapping review examining the research conducted and summarising the findings and gaps in the existing literature. To facilitate the training of Australian police officers, Jacquie is experienced in playing the child in mock forensic interviews.
Jacquie completed a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) in 2018, in the area of social psychology, where she investigated the associations between parents’ antisocial beliefs and children’s trait psychopathy. She currently works as a tutor in psychology at Deakin University.
Madeleine Armstrong – Madeleine is completing her PhD and will investigate how suggestibility in forensic interviewing can impact adult eyewitness testimony in relation to repeated events of domestic violence.
Madeleine completed her Bachelor of Criminal Justice at Victoria University, and her Graduate Diploma of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. She completed her honours year in psychology at Deakin University in 2020, where she graduated with first class honours.
Atticus Gray – Atticus is completing his PhD examining the effects of misinformation in an adolescent population. He completed his honours in psychology at Deakin University in 2018.
Rachel Watkins – Rachel is undertaking her PhD investigating the effects of repeated interviews on adult eyewitnesses recalling repeated domestic violence incidents. As a part of this work she is exploring interview strategies to support memory recall in forensic interviews.
Rachel graduated with first-class honours from her Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) in 2021, where she investigated the effects of spacing intervals between repeated event episodes on adults’ event memory accuracy. She currently works as a tutor in psychology at Deakin University.