Stacia N. Stolzenberg is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University; she received tenure in 2021. She is also a core faculty for ASU's program on Law and Behavioral Science, where she also mentors graduate students. Dr. Stolzenberg received her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from Claremont Graduate University in 2012. Afterwards, she conducted a three-year postdoc at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law. Since that time, 2015, she has been at ASU.
Dr. Stolzenberg takes an interdisciplinary and mixed-methods approach to studying children’s reports of maltreatment, then applying her work to the criminal justice system. Her work focuses on the direct application of developmental science to increasing accurate and complete disclosures from children, without increasing false reporting. To do so, she studies the reporting, investigating and prosecuting of child maltreatment. Furthermore, Stolzenberg studies children’s competencies and vulnerabilities regarding their cognitive abilities, as they apply to forensic interviewing. She is also interested in methodological decision-making and how this influences the robustness of developmental science. Much of her work focuses on childhood victimization and sex crimes against youth. She works closely with agencies such as the Phoenix Children's Hospital, Child Advocacy Centers, and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. Dr. Stolzenberg's work has been funded by federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Stolzenberg was appointed as the Director of the Undergraduate Program in Criminology and Criminal Justice in January of 2022. During this time, Dr. Stolzenberg acted as the Barrett Faculty Honors Advisor for Criminology and Criminal Justice students. Since the summer of 2023, Dr. Stolzenberg has served as the Director of the In-Person Graduate Programs for the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. In this capacity, she oversees the M.S. and Ph.D. Programs in the School.
Education
Ph.D. Applied Developmental Psychology, Claremont Graduate University 2012
M.A. Applied Developmental Psychology, Claremont Graduate University 2010
B.A. Psychology and Art (Magna Cum Laude), Chapman University 2008
What are methods that can elicit true disclosures of abuse without increasing false reports? What are realistic boundaries for what children can recall accurately? How do children understand and respond to questioning by adults? What are feasible methods that can be implemented by those in the field to better handled children’s reports of maltreatment?
These are the questions that Dr. Stolzenberg's research aims to answer. In doing so, she utilizes mixed-methods. She assesses what happens in real cases and then use these findings to assess children’s competencies and vulnerabilities in the laboratory. Dr. Stolzenberg then return to what happens in the field to inform current practices during investigative processes.
