By Morgan McCann (Whetstone Staff Writer)

Valerie Perez

When Wesley’s new psychology professor Valerie Perez started teaching at Florida International University, dozens of students flooded the auditoriums where she lectured. Now, her classes include no more than a fraction of what she’s taught before.

“I like being able to see my students around campus,” said Perez, who feels more comfortable with the smaller class setting and likes being close to her students.

Perez can be found in her first floor Budd Hall office, where she prepares for her classes, which include Intro to Psychology and History and Systems of Psychology courses.

“I think she is a great professor,” said Michelle Edwards, a freshman.  “With both of us being new to Wesley, I think it is great in a way.”

Edwards said she likes the way Perez teaches.

“I’m excited to learn a lot this semester,” Edwards said.

Perez earned all of her degrees at Florida International University, including a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and a Master’s of Science and Ph.D in Legal Psychology.  She also taught at a community college.

Originally, Perez wanted to become a counselor, but her research in college led her toward studying legal psychology. She hopes she can inspire students to become interested in studying forensic and legal psychology. Forensic psychology is the application of psychology to legal matters in a court of law while legal psychology takes social and mental theories and principles and applies them to legal issues.

At FIU, she conducted research outside of the classroom and with her students. Her research explores contemporary issues in psychology and law, including jury decision making and lie detection. Specific topics that she is interested in are cognitive strategies of liars and truth tellers, deception detection, perceived dangerousness, the insanity defense, and criminal sentencing.

She said she wants to continue doing research at Wesley after she gets adjusted to the school and community.

Another student, Meghan Fersch, enjoys Perez’s PowerPoint presentations.

“They are very descriptive and she elaborates on each slide by using real life scenarios,” Fersch said. “It really helps us to grab the concept.”