Dr Julia Shaw is a criminal psychologist interested in AI. She is a bestselling author, regular presenter of TV and audio shows, and researcher based at King’s College London.
She is an expert on false memory, understanding the criminal mind, and the intersection of social science and artificial intelligence.
Dr Julia Shaw is the author of four popular non-fiction books:
The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory.
Making Evil: The Science behind humanity’s dark side.
Bi: The hidden history, culture, and science of bisexuality.
Green Crime: Inside the minds of the people destroying the planet and how to stop them.
Artificial Intelligence
Most recently, Dr Julia Shaw has turned her attention to how AI is changing the fabric of reality; from society, to the justice system, to our everyday perception. She is a researcher at the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Dr Shaw has become deeply embedded in London's global AI ecosystem, including spending the summer of 2026 as a visitor at GovAI, which helps decision-makers navigate the transition to a world with advanced AI.
Her interest began in 2017, when she co-founded the AI silicon valley startup Spot, a legal and HR tool which uses AI to apply cognitive science in practical workplace settings. Her expertise on the intersection between AI and psychology has been featured in international press, including in WIRED (here, here, and here), Scientific American, Gizmdo, Vox, Fast Company, the Financial Times, and the Lex Fridman Podcast.
TV Presenting
Dr Julia Shaw is the presenter of four seasons of the documentary series Killers Caught on Camera with season five currently in production, and the spin off series Murder in Mind. She appears regularly as an expert on the criminal mind across TV and streaming platforms.
In 2024, Dr Shaw co-hosted the BBC2 true crime comedy series “The Misinvestigations of Romesh Ranganathan”.
Radio & Podcast Presenting
In addition to regularly being a guest on many radio shows and podcasts, Dr Shaw has released various original series. Most recently, in March 2026, Project Mind Control. Her Project Mind Control podcast is about the psychology of whether it is possible to control people’s minds and the dark and fascinating history of psychiatry.
Between 2020 and 2024 she wrote and hosted 125 episodes of the award-winning BBC Sounds podcast Bad People. Originally co-hosted by comedian Sofie Hagen, then by journalist Amber Haque.
Dr Shaw has also hosted other audio series, including; Experts on Trial on BBC Radio 4 which is about the secret world of expert witnesses. The Human Subject on BBC Radio 4, co-hosted by Dr Adam Rutherford, is about the dark history of modern medicine. She also co-hosted The Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater on BBC Radio Nottingham, alongside journalist Andy Whittaker. Her radio doc When Reality Breaks on BBC Radio 4 is about the loved ones of people with Paranoid Schizophrenia.
Dr Julia Shaw is bisexual, and in 2022 she released her book “Bi: The hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality” and created the BBC podcast Bi People.
German-language work
Dr Julia Shaw is German-Canadian. She has presented the German TVNOW documentary “Mörderische Frauen” and regularly appears on German television.
Since 2026, Dr Shaw has been a regular expert guest on one of Germany’s biggest radio shows, Bayern 3 True Crime, which has millions of listeners per episode. In the autumn of 2026 she will release a 6-part German Audible originals box set. In 2021 she hosted the 10-part RTL audio series Böse with actor Jazzy Gudd.
She has also worked as 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 and her work on false memory.
Writing for Popular Press
Dr Shaw has written articles for major international outlets. Including The Guardian, Time magazine, and the BBC, and she was a regular columnist at BBC Science Focus Magazine (2022), Scientific American (2015-2017) and Psychology Today (2019-2020).
Her four books are published in more than 20 languages, and two were international bestsellers. Her publishers include Penguin Random House, Canongate, Ulstein, and Hanser, among many prestigious international publishers.
Keynotes & Events
Dr Julia Shaw speaks at the intersection of memory research, social science, and artificial intelligence.
At a moment when audiences are tired of AI talks that are vendor pitches in disguise, her keynotes bring rigorous behavioural science to the questions that actually keep leaders up at night:
How does AI distort our minds, memories, and society?
What human-critical skills do we need to build ethical, resilient organisations?
How do we harness social science to make better decisions in an AI-driven world?
With a focus on ethical AI, and the future of human-AI collaboration, Dr Shaw helps audiences move from anxiety about technological change to concrete strategies for building a better tomorrow.
Dr Julia Shaw has delivered keynotes on AI and social science to organisations on the forefront of technological change, including Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, and Meta. Her talks and panel discussions on the human mind and memory (like at CEBIT) have reached finance, medical, scientific, and legal audiences worldwide. Her TED talks have had millions of views.
To book Dr Shaw for keynotes, panels, or advisory work, contact Sophieclaire Armitage at Mirador. You can also follow Dr Julia Shaw on LinkedIn.