Theresa A. Gannon

Theresa A. Gannon is a British academic psychologist and chartered psychologist, and is a full professor at the University of Kent specialising in forensic psychology, where she serves as Director of the Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology. She completed a degree in psychology at the University of Birmingham, became fascinated by forensic psychology in her third year, and completed a PhD titled "Cognitive distortions in child sexual offenders: fact of fiction?" at the University of Sussex in 2003. She then undertook a four year postdoctoral fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington, working with psychologist Tony Ward on the psychology of sexual offenders, before returning to the UK.

In 2010, she and her CORE-FP colleagues won a Ministry of Justice tender to evaluate mandatory polygraph testing for individuals who had sexually offended and were released on license in the UK. As a result of their research, new legislation was passed to allow polygraph testing for men who had sexually offended in the UK. Her foundational 2014 study of mandatory polygraph testing for sexual offenders in the United Kingdom found that offenders in the polygraph group were significantly more likely to make clinically relevant disclosures than those receiving standard supervision. More recently, Theresa co-led a team to evaluate polygraph testing implemented by the police for individuals either suspected of or convicted of sexual offences. Her 2021 work examined why polygraph testing does not consistently lead to reduced recidivism, critically analyzing the mechanisms through which PCSOT is presumed to work.

Gannon is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and was awarded the British Psychological Society's Division of Forensic Psychology Lifetime Contribution to Forensic Psychology Award in 2019. In 2016, Theresa and team were awarded the ESRC's outstanding impact in society award for their research on deliberate firesetters and treatment development. She was editor in chief of the journal Psychology, Crime & Law from 2012. Her polygraph research has been particularly influential in shaping UK policy, with her evaluations directly informing legislative changes that permitted mandatory polygraph testing for sexual offenders on license and later expanded its use to police supervision contexts.

While Gannon's polygraph work represents a significant portion of her applied research, her broader expertise encompasses sexual offender assessment and treatment, including pioneering work on female sexual offenders and cognitive distortions in child molesters. She has developed two empirically based standardised treatment programmes for offenders who have set fires: The Firesetting Intervention Programme for Prisoners (FIPP) and the Firesetting Intervention Programme for Mentally Disordered Offenders (FIP-MO). The FIPP is being run across prisons in England and the FIP-MO is being run nationally across the UK. Her polygraph research integrates with her wider focus on enhancing disclosure and managing risk in forensic populations, particularly examining methods to increase honest reporting from sexual offenders under community supervision.