Lead Researchers
Prof. Hilary Evans Cameron
Hilary Evans Cameron is an Associate Professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, in Toronto, Canada. A former litigator who represented refugee claimants for a decade, she holds a doctorate in refugee law from the University of Toronto.
Much of Prof. Evans Cameron’s research centres on fact-finding, with a focus on deception judgments in refugee status rejections. She explores questions at the intersection of law and psychology: How do decision-makers decide that a refugee claimant is lying? What inferences do they rely on to justify these conclusions? What assumptions underlie these inferences, and how well-founded are these assumptions? Her work in legal logics explores the principles that guide fact-finding: What structures constrain the drawing of factual conclusions from evidence, and what normative principles should guide the development of these structures? Beyond this, Prof. Evans Cameron has written about administrative law, pedagogy, experimental methodologies, pseudoscience, and the coming of AI to refugee hearings.
Prof. Evans Cameron is the author of many publications, including a book about the law of fact-finding in refugee status decision-making (Refugee Law’s Fact-finding Crisis: Truth, Risk, and the Wrong Mistake, Cambridge 2018). Her work is cited widely within the academy and by decision-makers and judges in Canada and internationally. She regularly gives lectures and training sessions to audiences around the world
Prof. Evans Cameron is a member of the Migrant Integration in the mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides research team.
Dr. Jane Herlihy
Jane Herlihy is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Honorary Lecturer at University College, London and Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law, Royal Holloway, University of London. She has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from University College, London and extensive clinical experience, particularly in trauma and refugee contexts.
Dr. Herlihy’s research focuses on the intersection of psychology and law, particularly the role of psychological processes in refugee status decision-making. Her work explores critical questions such as: What psychological factors influence perceptions of credibility in refugee hearings? How do trauma and normal memory discrepancies affect the legal assessments of asylum seekers? Through her investigations, she aims to improve the integration of psychological evidence into legal frameworks, enhancing the fairness and reliability of asylum processes.
In 2005 Dr. Herlihy co-founded the Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law with Dr. Stuart Turner. (external link) As executive director and principal researcher from 2005 to 2017, Dr. Herlihy led groundbreaking studies that have shaped our understanding of psychological processes in refugee status decision making, such as memory, trauma, the detection of deception and emotion – in claimants, lawyers, interviewers and decision makers.
Dr. Herlihy is widely published in both scientific and legal peer-reviewed journals addressing the complexities of refugee status decision-making. She has been involved in training decision makers across Europe from Brussels to Tajikistan, has spoken at the European Union Ministerial Conference, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Executive Committee and in a broad, worldwide range of conference and training settings addressing researchers, legal and psychology practitioners and state and judicial decision makers.
Her commitment to advancing the understanding of psychological factors in law continues to influence both academic research and practical applications in the field.