Back in November, I had the opportunity to fly to Melbourne (it didn’t feel like that much of an opportunity when I was clutching coffee at 5am in the airport) to attend the Australasian Jury Research and Practices Conference held at the beautiful Monash University. Attending with me were two […]
With high numbers of Australians experiencing domestic abuse, some may wonder how a person can fall in love and stay with their abuser. This may in part be motivated by self-protective desire to believe “that wouldn’t happen to me, I wouldn’t let it” and a desire to believe that the […]
Domestic and family violence is a pervasive social problem that can have significant, long-term effects for a survivor’s physical and mental health (Queensland Government, 2015). In Australia in 2012, it was estimated that 17.0% of all women and 5.3% of all men had experienced an incident of domestic violence at […]
Whenever someone I don’t know too well, a distant friend, someone at the gym, or even the lady at the convenience store, asks me “so what is your PhD on?”, I try (as my supervisors suggested), to sum up the next four years of intense research into just one statement. […]
I was fifteen when I first encountered something struck me as making absolutely no sense. In a sentencing hearing Old Bailey Judge Sir John Leonard declared of a rape victim that “the trauma suffered by the victim was not so great”. He promptly handed out a longer sentence to one […]
Changes to the status quo regarding gay blood donation began occurring in the late ‘00s, continue in 2018, and are very likely to continue on into the future as Blood Collection Agencies (BCAs) around the world respond to the growing public pressure from advocacy groups and to the mounting clinical […]
Associate Professor Barbara Masser with Alison Gould The University of Queensland; The Australian Red Cross Blood Service Many years ago, way back in the 20th century, some inquisitive soul asked me what I researched. “Blood donor recruitment and retention” I said proudly. Shooting me a look that suggested I had […]
Medical and surgical abortions are safe procedures with low mortality rates for Australian women1. Despite this evidence, it is currently illegal for women to access abortions in New South Wales and Queensland unless a doctor believes a woman’s physical and/or mental health may be jeopardised by continuing with the pregnancy2. […]
Associate Professor Barbara Masser with Alison Gould The University of Queensland; The Australian Red Cross Blood Service “Hi Kylie, your blood donation is at work! Your blood has gone on to save lives at St Vincent’s Hospital”. My friend proudly showed me the text she had received after her last blood […]
In July this year, I headed off to Albuquerque to present at the annual Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) conference in New Mexico, USA alongside my fellow PhDers, Tulsi Achia, Morgana Lizzio-Wilson. I hadn’t been to a SPSSI conference, or to the States, and I didn’t know […]
Legal decision-making in relation to sexual assault is often influenced by shared social beliefs (schemas). In investigating these beliefs, prior research has confounded different schemas – offence prototypes, sexual script schemas, and victim and perpetrator stereotypes. At this stage, it is unclear which schemas are influential and when, making it difficult […]
Contrary to popular belief, forensic comparison evidence, such as fingerprint evidence, are tasks completed by a human not a computer. For over 100 years, fingerprint experts have been able to testify in a court of law that two prints match to the exclusion of all other people, without any empirical […]