She received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. She specializes in forensic psychology and child and adolescent behavior problems. She conducts research on adolescents’ comprehension of Miranda rights and their decisions to offer true or false confessions during interrogations. She also develops intervention programs for female juvenile offenders. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Psychology-Law Society, the American Academy of Forensic Psychology, and the Institute for the Humanities at Drexel.