Dr Julia Shaw is a psychological scientist at University College London, who often works as an expert witness. She is the author of multiple best-selling books and a BBC science communicator. She is best known for her work in the areas of false memory, bisexuality, and criminal psychology.
Biography
Criminal psychology
In 2019 Dr Shaw published the international bestseller Evil: The science behind humanity's dark side. Based on this, in 2020 she launched the award-winning BBC podcast Bad People co-hosted by comedian Sofie Hagen. In 2022 she released the AudioNow podcast “Böse” with Jazzy Gudd. She is currently working on her fourth book, on the psychology of environmental crime.
Bisexuality
Released in the summer of 2022, Dr Shaw’s third book Bi: The hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality is an eye-opening, rigorous, and personal exploration of sexuality. According to The Guardian “the book opens up conversations that might just lead to more visibility, understanding and empathy for all people, however they define themselves”.
She co-hosted the BBC podcast Bi People and is the founder of the Bisexual Research Group.
Memory
Dr Shaw has done extensive research on memory in legal contexts. She is an expert assessor for the Netherlands Register of Court Experts (NRGD) which is part of the Dutch Ministry of Justice. In 2016 she published her bestselling debut book The Memory Illusion: Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false memory, which has appeared in 20 languages.
TV Work
Her work has led to many TV appearances. Dr Shaw is the presenter of the 10-part series Killers Caught on Camera, appearing on CBS and internationally in early 2023. She also co-hosts the BBC2 true crime comedy series “The Misinvestigations of Romesh Ranganathan”, which is currently filming more episodes.
She was also the host of the 2021 German TVNOW true crime documentary “Mörderische Frauen”, and was featured on the PBS show “Memory Hackers”.
She was also the expert consultant for the German TV drama “The Witnesses” (8 Zeugen). The protagonist of the series, played by the famous German actress Alexandra Maria-Lara, is based on Dr Shaw.
Science Writing
Dr Shaw was a columnist at BBC Science Focus Magazine (2022). Previously she was a regular contributor to Scientific American (2015-2017) and Psychology Today (2019-2020).
Dr Shaw is a regular keynote speaker on the topics of memory, evil, and making workplaces more diverse and inclusive.
As part of her efforts to tackle harassment and discrimination, in 2017 she co-founded the A.I. startup Spot which helps organisations better deal with inappropriate workplace behaviour.