Maria Hartwig

Maria Hartwig is a Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York), where she has been on the faculty since 2006. She completed her graduate training in Sweden, earning her PhD from the University of Gothenburg in 2005, where she conducted empirical research on social perception and judgment in legal settings. She is Co-Founder and Director of Project Aletheia, a platform aimed at bridging the gap between the science and practice of interrogation.

Her scientific expertise is in the psychology of interrogation and the related topic of the psychology of deception. Hartwig is best known for developing the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique, an interview method designed to elicit cues to deception by strategically managing case information and evidence disclosure. Research on her 2014 meta-analysis found that lies can be detected with nearly 70% accuracy, and this level of detectability is stable across settings. Studies have shown that SUE-trained interviewers achieved deception detection accuracy rates of 65% compared to 43% for untrained interviewers. Her work has demonstrated that strategic questioning and delayed evidence disclosure creates inconsistencies in deceptive statements while truth-tellers remain consistent.

She has produced significant research with the support of various government agencies including law enforcement, the Department of Defense, and the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), and her work on strategic questioning techniques is incorporated in the training programs of the HIG and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). Her research on interviewing to detect deception has attracted the attention of law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the United States and Europe, and in 2011, she testified before the United States Congress about behavioral science and airport security. She serves on the editorial boards of Law and Human Behavior and Legal and Criminological Psychology, and received the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law in 2012.

Hartwig's work extends beyond traditional deception detection to encompass broader interrogation reform and justice system improvements. Her collaborations with Swedish researcher Pär Anders Granhag and her frequent co-author Charles F. Bond have produced influential meta-analyses examining why people fail at detecting deception. Project Aletheia, founded in 2020 with Mark Fallon (a former NCIS special agent), serves as a collaborative platform for researchers and practitioners working toward evidence-based interrogation practices that respect human rights while improving investigative outcomes.