Dr Melanie Sauerland (M.)

Dr Sauerland's expertise is in eyewitness memory, face recognition, and investigative interviewing, or more generally the psychology of testimony.

Melanie Sauerland is the Chair of the Section Forensic Psychology and the Director of the Graduate School of Psychology and Neuroscience. She studied Psychology at Bonn University (1996–2002) and earned her PhD at Giessen University in 2007, focusing on metacognition in eyewitnesses. After a year at ITB Consulting in Bonn, she joined Maastricht University in 2009 to continue her research on eyewitness memory and suspect testimony.

She investigates the reliability of testimony in legal settings, examining factors that undermine or facilitate accuracy. Her research lines revolve around critical areas in legal psychology, including the effects of stress on eyewitness memory, the Concealed Information Test as an alternative to classic lineups, and defendants’ use of the right to remain silent (see here for details). Her research is funded by NWO and SWOL.

Research Translation and Impact. Dr Sauerland’s work informs evidence-based recommendations for improving legal policies and practices. For example, her research has directly informed revisions of the Dutch guidelines for lineup construction and administration and investigative interviews, advancing the use of evidence-based procedures in practice. 

As an expert witness, Dr Sauerland has testified in numerous criminal cases about eyewitness and suspect testimony. In one landmark case, the Petten Camping Murder, her expert report was instrumental in the Dutch Supreme Court’s (Hoge Raad) order of a retrial, making it the first time in Dutch legal history that the Hoge Raad accepted a legal psychologist’s report as new evidence, a prerequisite for a retrial. In the retrial, the defendant was acquitted.

Beyond the courtroom, Dr Sauerland is committed to science communication. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of the German edition of In-Mind, an open-access journal that publishes accessible reviews of psychology research. The journal is a prominent platform for bridging the gap between psychological science and the public. The efforts in promoting psychological science have earned the journal numerous awards, including the Service to the Field Award for Excellence in Science Journalism (SPSP), the Outstanding Service to Social Psychology Award (EASP), and the Award for Promoting Psychology (DGPs).