Haley R. Dawson

Dr. Dawson joined Tech in Fall 2025 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling & Psychology. She teaches courses in legal psychology, cognition, experimental psychology, and information literacy. In class, she aims to increase student’s metacognition and to help them find genuine interest in the course using a self-directed approach in projects.

Dr. Dawson oversees the LEAP (Legal, Experiential, and Applied Psychology) Lab here at Tech. Her research interests include many areas of legal psychology such as memory, memory improvement, investigative interviewing, witness perceptions, best-practices and improvement, bias, deception detection, legal decision making. She values interdisciplinary collaborations and working with communities that can directly benefit from research. If you are interested in learning more about the lab or are seeking mentorship for your own unique research project in a related area, please send an email, hdawson@tntech.edu. 

Degrees and Certifications

• Ph.D., Legal Psychology, Florida International University
  • Graduate Certificate in Teaching
• M.S., Legal Psychology, Florida International University
• B.S. Biology, University of Michigan-Flint
• B.A. Psychology, University of Michigan-Flint
  • Minor in Gerontology

Selected Publications
*indicates student collaboration

• Dawson, H.R., Venezuela, A.*, Schreiber-Compo N., (2025). Secondary Trauma and Burnout in Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, a 6-Month Follow-Up. Journal of Forensic Nursing
• Dawson, H. R., Zuniga, R., Schreiber Compo, N., Thomas, T., & Nobrega, J. C. (2025). Sexual Assault Nurse Exams and Patients Under the Influence: A Qualitative and Quantitative Snapshot. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 39(4), e70096.
• Dawson, H.R., LaBat, D., Sparacino, M., Schreiber Compo N., Marciano, M., (2025) DNA analysts' experiences with human factors: A quantitative and qualitative snapshot. Journal of Forensic Science. 70: 1414–1423.
• Dawson, H.R., Schreiber Compo N., Thomas, T., Nobrega, J. (2024) Assessing trauma and training needs of sexual assault nurse examiners across the United States. Journal of Forensic Nursing, 10-1097
• Evans J. R, Dawson H. R., Chae H., Goldfarb D., Fisher R. P., Dianiska R., Meissner C. A. (2022) Enhancing the effectiveness of contact tracing interviews: A randomized controlled experiment of an enhanced cognitive interview protocol. American Journal of Infection Control. 50(6), 631-637.