Rachel Searston

Dr Rachel Searston

Senior Lecturer in Psychology

School of Psychology

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Rachel is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at The University of Adelaide. Her research group studies expert decision-making and communication in high risk contexts, including forensic science, policing, defence, health and space. Rachel was formerly a McKenzie Fellow at the University of Melbourne and completed her PhD in Cognitive Science at The University of Queensland.

We rely on the clarity and credibility of expert advice in every sector of society to guide our actions and decisions. We turn to experts to better understand and weigh up the risks and benefits of different treatments in the doctor's office. We consider expert opinion when deliberating on the guilt or innocence of persons accused of serious crimes in the courtroom. We count on expert advice to guide our responses to natural disasters, public health crises, and other arising global challenges. In the Expert Cognition Lab, we focus on questions about the nature and communication of expert decisions as they apply to practical problems arising within organisations and across industries. For example, we are interested in understanding what makes an expert an expert, how to optimise expert decision-making, and how best to communicate expert advice for optimal decision-making in policing, defence, and online information environments. 

Our research model involves close collaboration with practitioners and partners in industry to develop solutions to human-in-the-loop problems with tangible operational benefits. Our research in the forensic science context, for example, is helping to identify evidence-based methods for training and selecting new forensic examiners. The outcomes of this research assist forensic examiners, in policing, intelligence and security systems, to make accurate and timely decisions, reduce the risk of error, and reduce the time and resources taken from frontline policing to train experts. 

Honours Projects 2023

Honours projects will investigate basic and applied problems related to expert decision-making: What makes an expert credible? What factors affect public trust in experts? How do people interpret and integrate information provided by multiple experts? What is the best way to present expert opinion on scientific evidence in a legal context or in a social media context? How do approaches to news reporting affect comprehension and trust in expert advice? How can we best support human/expert reasoning in novel environments (e.g., in space)? These projects will involve quantitative and experimental methods, but may also use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. 

Searston, R. A (2024-2027). Enhancing comprehension of forensic science in the justice system. Australian Research Council Early Career Industry Fellowship (IE230100380). Research funds: $403,153.

Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Thompson, M. B (2022-2024). Australian Federal Police, National Institute of Forensic Science, and Victoria Police ($AU160,000 combined funding) on 'Telling Prints Apart vs Telling Prints Together :Inter- vs Intra-print variability in Fingerprint Analysis'. 

Palmer, E., Culton, J., Searston, R. A., Bennett, T., Cook, S., Davies, M., Ding, B., Robertson, W., Turnbull, D. (2022-2023). Developing situational awareness in lunar exploration activities. The University of Adelaide transdisciplinary DIGI+ FAME strategic grant. Research funds: $100,000.

Szpak, Z., Stephens, R., Ransom, K., & Searston, R. A. (2022-2023). Defence Innovation Partnership AI for Decision-Making Project ($AU 100,000) on 'A tool for human-in-the-loop contextual anomaly detection'.

Searston, R. A. (2020-2021). Defence Innovation Partnership AI for Decision-Making Project ($AU 20,000) on 'Improving the visual communication of uncertainty in artificial intelligence'. 

Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Edmond, G., Eva, K. W., Osborn, S, McCarthy, D., Hayes, R. (2018-2023). Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP170100086, $AU 534,188) on 'Creating perceptual experts in Australia's policing and security agencies'. 

Lodge, J. M., Searston, R. A., Fidler, F., Bailey, J., Little, D., Nolan, D. (2018). Melbourne Networked Society Institute Seed Funding grant ($AU 37,368) on 'Combating fake news and misinformation online: Evaluating and updating conceptual understanding in the networked society'. 

Searston, R. A. (2017-2020). University of Melbourne McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship ($AU 282,245 + $AU 20,000 project costs).

Searston, R. A. (2013-2016). Australian Government Australian Postgraduate Award ($AU 73,959).

I teach a fourth year elective course called Contemporary Issues exploring topics related to consciousness and cognition, and I co-coordinate the Psychology Honours program. I've also taught broadly on topics such as open science, quantitative research methods, and R for statistical analysis across all levels of the undergraduate psychology research methods curriculum.

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2024 Principal Supervisor Factors influencing memory for forensic information Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Daniella Catelidia Chiarolli
    2022 Co-Supervisor Sharing Misinformation: The Socio-Psychological Mechanisms of Spread Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Emily Brooke Mullins

  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Exploring the Use of Constructive Journalism to Combat Misinformation in the Mainstream Media Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Natasha Renee Van Antwerpen

  • Other Supervision Activities
    Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name
    2023 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Social cognition and career interest in psychology The University of Adelaide - Honours Full Time Sarah Williams
    2023 - 2023 Principal Supervisor The nature of visual working memory for identity decisions The University of Adelaide - Honours Full Time Daniella Chiarolli
    2022 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Do cues to expertise and disinterestness affect belief in scientific claims? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Estelle Green
    2022 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Does immersive virtual reality improve situational awareness? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Hong Juanta
    2022 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Do cues to expertise affect belief in health claims? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Nusrat Asad
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Perceptions of collective expert judgements The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Emma Tiggerman
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Expert reasoning in clinical psychology The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Cheyenne Gronthos
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Recalling autobiographical memories of nature The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Sue Conaghty
    2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Contrast practice for developing fingerprint expertise The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Jade Cascun
    2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Interleaved practice for developing fingerprint expertise The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Claire Walker
    2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Perceptions of forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours - Jonica Koodrin
    2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Evaluating forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Bachelor of Health and Medical Sciences - Research Placement Other - Zoe Chandler
    2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Evaluating forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Bachelor of Health and Medical Sciences - Research Placement Other - Shannon Campbell
    2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor What is the optimal rate of image presentation for recognising people? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Carlos Ibaviosa
    2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Discriminating artistic and naturalistic style in visual crowding The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Carly Sullivan
    2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Detecting changes in paintings and scenes The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Athina Kakkos
    2018 - 2022 Co-Supervisor The relationship between visual expertise and learned attention The University of Queensland Doctor of Philosophy Higher Doctorate Full Time Samuel Robson
    2018 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Perceptual expertise with classifying fingerprints The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Anneliese Cavallaro
  • Position: Senior Lecturer in Psychology
  • Phone: 83130057
  • Email: rachel.searston@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Hughes, floor 7
  • Org Unit: Psychology
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