Melanie Fessinger is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the School of Interdisciplinary Forensics at Arizona State University. She was formerly a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York with dual specializations in psychology and law and basic and applied social psychology. She also earned a Master's Degree in Legal Studies from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from California State University Northridge. 

 

Her research draws from basic social psychological theories to understand people's experiences in the legal system, specifically when they make different types of legal decisions (e.g., guilty pleas, Miranda waivers, verdicts) and interact with different types of legal professionals (e.g., attorneys, judges, police). Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the American Psychology-Law Society. She has also worked on projects funded by the National Institute of Justice and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She has received several awards for her research, including an Outstanding Research Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Her work has been cited in briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court and the Michigan Supreme Court as well as in an opinion published by the Iowa Supreme Court. She has also consulted on cases in the New York Criminal Courts, the Michigan Supreme Court, and the International Court of Justice.