Director
joining the faculty at John Jay she completed a pre-doctoral clinical internship at Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School. She currently serves on the New York City Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Committee.
Dr. Haney-Caron is a licensed psychologist in New York and a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania. She maintains a small forensic assessment practice, focused primarily on Miranda waivers and on assessing youth developmental immaturity.
Emily Haney-Caron is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dr. Haney-Caron's research, scholarship, policy work, and teaching are all focused on the juvenile legal system, with a primary goal of contributing to system reform to increase racial justice and improve the system’s developmental appropriateness. She has published research or scholarship on racism and colorism in the juvenile legal system, youth Miranda comprehension, false confession, fines and fees in the juvenile legal system, the school-to-prison pipeline, developmental immaturity, psychopathology among legally involved youth, and applications of the Risk-Needs-Responsivity model to juvenile justice. Dr. Haney-Caron's scholarship has been profiled by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and MSNBC, and has been cited in U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs and a U.S. Department of Justice Advisory.
Dr. Haney-Caron teaches doctoral courses on forensic assessment, the law of forensic psychology, juvenile justice, and psychopathology, as well as Master's and undergraduate classes at the intersection of psychology and law. Before
LILI RAMOS
Doctoral Student
Lili Ramos is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She graduated from Bowdoin College in 2018, with a major in Psychology and a minor in Hispanic Studies. Before starting at John Jay, Lili spent two years as a Clinical Research Coordinator in the Juvenile Justice Behavioral Health Lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At John Jay, Lili works on several projects that aim to inform juvenile legal system policies and practice reforms, including studies examining factors that contribute to adolescents’ experiences on probation and judges’ perceptions of youth plea bargain processes. Lili was selected for the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which supports her work applying an ecological approach to better understand youth success on probation.
DOCTORAL STUDENTS
STEPHANY BETANCES
Doctoral Student
Stephany Betances is a second-year student in the clinical psychology doctoral program at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is an alum of John Jay’s Forensic Psychology MA program and earned a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University. During her second year in the master’s program, she began her advocacy work for justice-involved youth through a placement with Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) as part of the Pinkerton Graduate Fellowship. After graduating, she returned to BDS as a mitigation specialist and later as a supervisor with the Adolescent Representation Team.
Stephany’s clinical and research interests center on justice-involved youth, alternative-to-incarceration programs, non-secure placements, and forensic assessments. She is dedicated to informing stakeholders and community leaders about developmentally appropriate interventions for justice-involved youth and advocate for policy changes to enhance their legal rights.
Stephany was recently awarded the 2024-2025 Samuel H. Solomon Memorial Scholarship. She is also fluent in Spanish.
MASTER'S STUDENTS
AMANDA SCARLATA
Master's Student
Amanda Scarlata is a second-year Master’s student in the Forensic Psychology program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University atAlbany and double majored in Psychology and Criminal Justice. Amanda was involved in research with the Psychological Understanding of Legal System Encounters (PULSE) Lab at the University at Albany and interned with the NYS Youth Justice Institute. She completed an undergraduate honors thesis under the supervision of Dr. Cynthia Najdowski, studying the impact of students' experiences with University Police on feelings of safety, well-being, and belongingness. In the Youth Law and Psychology Lab at John Jay, Amanda is assisting on a project analyzing youth Miranda waivers and the factors judges consider when deciding the admissibility of a youth’s confession. She is also completing an externship at NYU, working on the SAFE Spaces project at the Researching Inequity in Society Ecologically (RISE). Amanda’s research interests involve justice system-involved youth and evidence based alternatives to detention.
UNDERGRADUATES
ASHLI HAMILTON
Undergraduate Research Assistant
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Ashli Hamilton is a senior honors student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, majoring in Forensic Psychology with a minor in Sociology. She is also a scholar in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. Ashli’s research examines the impact of providing parents with educational materials before their child’s plea-bargaining process. Currently she is preparing to apply to graduate programs to pursue a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice.
LAB ALUMNI
FORMER DOCTORAL STUDENTS
Sydney Baker, Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for Youth Social Emotional Wellness, Rutgers GSAPP
Johanna Hellgren, Assistant Professor at University of New Haven
FORMER MASTER'S STUDENTS
Kaillee Philleo, Assistant Director of Experiential Education, Columbia University Center for Career Education
Aliya Birnbaum, doctoral student, Montclair State University
Charise Peters, research staff, YETI Lab, University of Pittsburgh
Denieka Ellis, doctoral student, NOVA Southeastern University
Erika Diaz Ortiz, Systems and Admin Coordinator, Queens Counseling for Change
Treasure Tabor, Mental Health Counselor, Footprints Mental Health Counseling
Sydney Tulloch
Tajae Ali
FORMER UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Kamar Tazi, doctoral student, University of North Texas
Alijah Sepulveda
Aliza Klingenstein
FORMER LEGAL RESEARCH AND POLICY INTERNS
Jessica Middleton
Diana Damewood