Jessica Salerno

Jessica Salerno is an Associate Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences division of Arizona State University's New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Dr. Salerno founded the ASU program on Law and Behavioral Science and holds fellowships at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology and Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. She directs the PhD Program in Law & Psychology and earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2012) and B.A. from Middlebury College (2003).

Her research focuses on applying social psychological principles to legal contexts, including how emotions like moral outrage and disgust influence legal decisions. Key areas include jury deliberation dynamics, bias in legal judgments involving stigmatized groups, and the evaluation of scientific evidence. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, and others.

Salerno's research has been published in top journals like *Law and Human Behavior* and *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*. She serves on editorial boards for *Psychology, Public Policy, & Law* and has received awards including the APS Rising Star designation. Her lab, the Social Psychology and Law Lab, explores topics such as attorney communication strategies and juror perception of evidence.

She advises numerous graduate students and teaches courses such as Psychology and Law. Her grants total over $2 million, supporting projects on bias reduction in legal processes and expert testimony evaluation.