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Dr Amanda Farrell

School of Justice Studies

Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies

Email: A.L.Farrell@ljmu.ac.uk

Telephone: 0151 231 2752

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I received my Ph.D. from Old Dominion University in Criminology and Criminal Justice, and I also hold a Master of Science in Investigative Psychology from the University of Liverpool, as well as a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice and Criminology from Sam Houston State University. Until I received the offer to join the LJMU policing faculty, I had been pursuing my third masters degree: a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling as a part-time student at Marymount University, where I also graduated summa cum laude with my Bachelor of Arts degree as a Criminal Justice and Sociology double major.

My experience in the criminal justice field is varied and started at an early age as a member of a first-responder family--predominantly a policing family, but we let the odd family member who chose to go into fire or EMS hang around still. As an undergraduate, I interned with the Metropolitan Police Service in London, primarily in the Youth Policy Unit but was also seconded to Territorial Policing. During my MSc and PhD programs, I interned with a mid-sized police department, primarily in the detective division, specifically with field forensics. This internship spanned just over six years, with me working anywhere from eight to 60 hours per week with full scene access, dependent on agency needs and my teaching and class schedules. Yes, I was a full time doctoral student (PhD programmes are taught and typically take three to seven years in the US), teaching full time after my first two years in the PhD programme, and working for free with the PD. I have worked many crime scenes with forensic personnel and other investigators, informally and formally consulted on several homicide investigations in various jurisdictions across the United States, assisted with instruction at both the police academy and in-service training, and have been a guest lecturer on practitioner partnerships to research stress and trauma at the FBI's National Academy. I have also been Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) trained and have completed the three ICISF courses recommended for peer support and basic Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) teams. During the last year of my doctorate, I was an ORISE research fellow for the FBI assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Units (BAUs) under the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), where I worked on projects related to abducted and murdered children, violent crimes against adults, and mass shooting/mass casualty incidents.

Until August 2021, I was a tenured associate professor of Criminal Justice at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, where I also served the university community as the IRB (aka Ethics Board) chair, and worked with the Criminal Justice Living Learning Community (CJLLC), a partnership between the Criminal Justice Department and the Office of Campus Residential Services (OCRS). To the larger community, I have consulted with several police and criminal justice-related agencies on topics related to investigations, stress, and resilience, as well as serving as a researcher and/or consultant on several Department of Justice projects, which includes serving as a consultant and the technical writer for the Department of Justice working on the Needs Assessment of Forensic Laboratories and Medical Examiner and Coroners Offices (2019). I have delivered several requested presentations and trainings on a variety of topics. I have also provided editorial assistance for the Journal of Juvenile Justice, currently serve on the editorial board for the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinities, and review for several other academic publications.

Why do I get to teach about the things that I do? Because it is fascinating and I have had the privilege of not only working numerous homicide scenes, consulting on cases, and working for the BAU as a research fellow, but I have studied and trained under some of the greats: Dr. Bob Keppel, Mr. Richard Walter, Professor Laurence Alison, etc. I am lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to research and publish on female serial murderers--who are always a favorite topic to discuss.

My research and teaching interests include homicide, criminal investigations, field forensics, human sexuality, policing, and stress, trauma and resilience in the first responder community. My recent work demonstrates expanded interest in stress/trauma and resilience, particularly with regard to more broad investigative contexts and to the forensic science workforce, as well as resilience in first responder populations in response to extreme weather conditions. In addition to contributing to two FBI publications, my work can be found in Psychology of Men and Masculinities; Police Practice and Research: An International Journal; Gender Issues; the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling; Homicide Studies; Feminist Criminology, and International Criminal Justice Review. I have written a chapter on the law enforcement perspective on mass shooting events in Jacklyn Schildkraut's edited text, Mass Shootings in America: Understanding the Debates, Causes, and Responses, and have both run and co-taught four pre-conference workshops for the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), including a half day on stress, trauma and resilience in 2019 and a full day on the same topic in 2020, as well as delivered training on stress, trauma and resilience for the Masters 18 Death Investigators Conference, the Nevada State Death Investigators Conference, the Maryland State Police, and the Houston Forensic Science Center.

Degrees

2014, Old Dominion University, United States, Ph.D.
2008, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, MSc
2006, Sam Houston State University, United States, MA
2003, Marymount University, United States, BA

Academic appointments

LDFM, Education, Marymount University, 2022 - present
Senior Lecturer, Liverpool Centre for Advanced Policing Studies, Liverpool John Moores University, 2021 - present
Adjunct Professor, Criminal Justice, Arcadia University, 2021 - present
Associate Professor, Criminal Justice, Marymount University, 2020 - 2021
Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice, Marymount University, 2014 - 2020

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