Dr Stavroulla Soukara

Dr. Stavroula Soukara is Associate Professor of Forensic Psychology and the Associate Head of Social Sciences Department at the University of Nicosia. Dr Soukara is a board member of the Hellenic Society of Criminology (GR), and the Scientific Institute of Anti-Crime Strategy and Security Policy at the Ministry of Justice and Public Order in Cyprus. She has been a visiting academic to Cyprus Police Academy for a number of years and has also served as an external advisor to the Cyprus Committee on Missing Persons. She received her BA (Hons) in Psychology from Sussex University (UK), her MSc in Criminal Justice Studies, her PGDip in Psychological Research Methods and her PhD in Forensic Psychology from Portsmouth University (UK). She has worked for several years at Hellenic Police Academy and Hellenic National Security School, where she offered expert advice and training as well as being a member of their educational council. Dr Soukara has published her work in various peer-reviewed journals and presented at a number of conferences worldwide; one of her publications was included in 2010 as the representative bibliography at the FBI Academy. She is a Member of the Advisory Council for the UN Protocol on “Principles on Effective Interviewing and Information Gathering” (2021) chaired by Juan Mendez, United Nation’s former Special Rapporteur on Torture.  Her research interests focus mainly on false confessions and miscarriages of justice, suspect, and witness investigative interviewing, as well as the detection of lies and deceit.