Aaron Douglas Professor Psychology

Lab site: Law and Policy Lab

Dr. Brank received her J.D. (2000) and Ph.D (2001) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the Law-Psychology Program. She joined the UNL faculty in 2008 and is part of the law-psychology and social programs. Prior to joining the Nebraska faculty, Dr. Brank was on the faculty in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of Florida. 

Her research primarily focuses on the way the law intervenes (and sometimes interferes) in family and personal decision making.  In particular, she studies the public support, implementation, and effectiveness of parental responsibility laws within the context of the juvenile justice system and the legal requirements of elder caregiving. Dr. Brank also studies issues related to decision making in the context of government searches.

Selected Publications (Full CV)

  • Brank, E.M. (in press). Older adults as victims and witnesses. Developmental Psychology and Law Handbook. 
  • Hazen, K.P., & Brank, E.M. (in press). Identifying and unpacking the role of social identity in moderating the police-civilian interactions. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology.

  • Hoetger, L. A., Devine, D. J., Brank, E.M., Rosen, R., Drew, R.M. & Brank, E.M. (2022). The impact of pretrial publicity: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 46(2), 121-139.

  • Hackenburg, L., Morgan, T., & Brank, E.M. (2021) “Born Under My Heart:” Adoptive Parents’ Use of Metaphors to Make Sense of Their Past, Present, and Future. The Family Journal, 30, 14-21.  

  • Brank, E.M., & Wylie, L.E. (2021).  Legal Responsibility among the Young and the Elderly. Invited submission for Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 17, 93-108.

  • Hazen, K. P., & Brank, E.M. (2021). Do you hear what I hear?: A comparison of police officer and civilian procedural justice judgments. Psychology, Crime, and Law.

  • Marshall, E.W., Groscup, J.L., Brank, E.M., Perez, A., & Hoetger, L.A.  (2020). Police surveillance of cell phone location data: Supreme Court versus public opinion. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 37,751-775. 

  • Hazen, K.P., Carlson, M. W., Hatten-Bower, H., Fessinger, M.B., Cole-Mossman, J., Bahm, J., Hauptman, K., Brank, E.M., & Gilkerson, L. (2020).  Evaluating the Impact of Facilitated Attuned Interactions: Vicarious Trauma, Professional Burnout, and the Quality of Reflective Practice among Child Welfare Professionals. Children and Youth Services Review, 112, 1-35.

  • Brank, E.M. (2019). The Psychology of Family Law. New York University Press. *Winner of the 2021 Lawrence S. Wrightsman Book Award awarded biennially to an authored scholarly work by the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS).

  • Brank, E.M., Groscup, J.L., Marshall, E.M., & Hoetger, L.A. (2019). Sniffer-dog searches in the United States. Court Review, 55(2), 56-61.

  • Fessinger, M., Hazen, K.P., Bahm, J., Cole-Mossman, J., Heideman, R., & Brank, E.M. (2019). Mandatory, fast, and fair: Parents’ perceptions of procedural justice in a mandatory family drug court. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 16, 49-77.

  • Brank, E.M., & Groscup, J.L. (2018) Psychology and the Fourth Amendment. In Monica Miller and Brian Bornstein, Ed. Advances in Psychology and Law, Volume 3. 119-149.

  • Wylie, L.E., Hazen, K.P., Hoetger, L.A., Haby, J.A., & Brank, E.M. (2018). Four decades of Law and Human Behavior: A content analysis. Scientometrics, 115(2), 655-693.