Prior to graduate school Elizabeth was a substance use disorder counselor for Utah County’s Drug Court, a job that made her realize her passion for the intersection of psychology and law, specifically how social science can inform problem-solving court procedures. After joining the lab, she was appointed as a researcher assisting the Nebraska Supreme Court's Committee on Problem-Solving Courts.
She also assisted a subcommittee in updating the Nebraska DUI and Adult Drug Court Standards, as well as a workgroup investigating alternatives to the current method of using volunteer judges to preside in Nebraska's problem-solving courts. For the past year Elizabeth has been working for the National Center for State Courts as a research intern, providing data analysis for specialty court evaluations in Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, and Alaska. She is also a contributing author for NCSC's Procedural Fairness Blog and recently graduated from law school.
Rachel’s own scholarly work is focused on how jurors evaluate false confession evidence and the influence of emotions on these evaluations. She plans to expand this line of work by attempting to train mock jurors on how to regulate their emotions to make more rational legal judgments. Rachel has also gained applied research experience in program evaluation, court observation, and trial consulting.
Rachel enjoys reading psychological thrillers, watching cooking and baking competition shows, working out with her partner, visiting breweries, amassing a large collection of houseplants, and exploring the Midwest.
Daniella's research interests center on applying various social-cognitive theories across a wide range of legal and policy domains. Her current work investigates the role of emotions and emotion regulation techniques in legal decision-making outcomes, particularly in judgments and attitudes towards marginalized victims and offenders.
Daniella also has experience as an applied researcher, conducting program evaluations for social and governmental agencies, trial consulting, and court watch projects. Daniella enjoys traveling (when she can), discovering new podcasts, and spending time with her cat, Cricket. She is also an avid figure skater and a former professional ballet dancer.
Kitra graduated with a Juris Doctorate from UNL Law School in May 2022 with an emphasis on Disability Law and alternatives to criminalization (i.e. Mediation and Restorative Justice) before beginning her Ph.D. in Social and Cognitive Psychology. Throughout law school, she worked for Disability Rights Nebraska where she worked on legal responses to the COVID-19 crisis, employment and school-based discrimination cases, and the monitoring of long-term care facilities. Currently, her research interests include legal decision-making outcomes for victims and perpetrators of violence, specifically in sex trafficking and domestic violence scenarios.
She also has experience in applied work through numerous trial consulting projects and by conducting program evaluations of social and governmental agencies both locally and through the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Kitra was also elected to become a member of the Board of Directors for the ACLU of Nebraska. When Kitra is not working, studying, or serving her community, she loves to spend time with her spouse, Kian, and her menagerie of 12 pets. Much of her free time goes towards renovating her home, and she enjoys reading, cooking, painting, and sewing as her hobbies.
Samantha Wieneris a graduate student at UNL, where she is pursuing her doctorate in Political Science. Samantha, who graduated from the University of Minnesota with distinction in May 2017 specializes in American policitcs and political psychology. She conducts research examining the role of emotion in judgments about immigration and evaluations of sex trafficking survivors.
Samantha serves as a program evaluation consultant for a number of Nebraska agencies including the Banisters Leadership Academy and the Nebraska ACLU. For fun, Samantha enjoys being outside, bike riding, and baking.
