Overview
Jessica Salerno, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and an Associate Member of the Law Faculty at Cornell University. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology and film from Middlebury College in 2003 and her doctorate in social psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2012.
Dr. Salerno’s research sits at the intersection of social psychology and the legal system, investigating how cognitive, emotional, and social processes affect the ways people interpret evidence, judge other people, and reach moral and legal judgments — especially in high-stakes settings like courtrooms. She investigates phenomena like bias, moral judgment, emotion, group dynamics and social influence to better understand how they shape legal judgments. Her work sheds light on how these factors shape how legal decision-makers (including jurors, judges, attorneys, and police officers) become suspicious, blame, and punish.
Drawing from both experimental methods and analysis of real-world data, Dr. Salerno’s research aims to generate basic psychological science to inform policy, improve the fairness of our civil and criminal justice systems, and promote justice. Much of her work focuses on how to improve jury procedures, ranging from jury selection through litigating wrongful convictions.
Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Bar Foundation and the National Institute of Justice. She has received multiple early-career awards, including the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence from the American Psychology-Law Society and the Association for Psychological Science’s Rising Star Award.
In addition to her research, Dr. Salerno is committed to public engagement and science communication. She frequently collaborates with legal professionals and has served as an expert witness on jury behavior, emotion, bias, and 911 Call Analysis. Her work has been featured in many national media outlets, and she welcomes opportunities to discuss how psychological science can illuminate — and improve — our most consequential systems of justice.