Katie Maras

Katie is a Professor in Psychology. Her work has two main strands – neurodiversity and forensic psychology, and the intersection between them. For example, Katie's research examines how autistic people fare when they are interviewed by the police as a witness or as a suspect of an alleged offence. Findings from this work show that current police interviewing techniques do not elicit ‘best evidence’ from autistic individuals. Through her ESRC Future Research Leaders grant Katie developed new methods of questioning to obtain detailed, relevant and accurate information about an event from an autistic person in police interviews as well as in other areas including job interviews. She is currently extending this work to courtroom questioning in a three-year ESRC-funded project, 'Measuring Special Measures'.

Katie works with a range of policy makers and end-user organisations, including a close collaboration with Avon and Somerset police. She recently completed an ESRC-funded secondment working with the Home Office on the Cyber Prevent strategy. 

Research areas

• Memory and cognition
• Vulnerability
• Autism
• Forensic psychology
• Investigative interviewing
• Offending behaviour
• Cybercrime

Recent grants

2023-2026       ESRC Research Grant (PI): Measuring Special Measures: Supporting access to justice for autistic people. £657,224

2022-2023       ESRC Home Office Policy Fellowship – Cyber Prevent (PI): £107,958

2017-2021       ESRC ‘Future Research Leaders’ grant (PI): Reporting by people with autism: A new evidence-based supportive model for information gathering in applied interview contexts. £279,555