Dr. Sharon Leal obtained a first-class honours degree in Psychology at the
University of Portsmouth in 2000 and received The John Dennis Award for best overall student and The Wiley Publishers Award for best overall dissertation. The following year she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in research methods before embarking upon PhD research. Her doctoral research was funded by the E.S.R.C and focused on the Central and Peripheral Physiology of Attention and Cognitive Demand, where multiple physiological responses were examined within the context of varying cognitive demand. Since completing her PhD, she has worked on grants from the E.S.R.C. and UK / US governments. 

Her research has involved working with different agencies concerned with high stake deception, including UK, US and Singapore governments. Additionally, she provides consultation and training to the intelligence community as well as expert testimony for courts. Since entering this arena in 2005 she has published numerous articles on this topic and has recently been ranked, as the 5th most prolific author in peer-reviewed journal articles in the field of deception and deception detection, worldwide.

Sharon is member of the International Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology (ICRFP) in the School of Psychology, Sport and Health Sciences. Her current research involves interviewing to assess credibility whereby the focus is to elicit information and maximise differences between lie tellers’ and truth tellers’ accounts. This research is relevant for discerning how people engaged in ‘high stake’ deception respond verbally and non-verbally in a variety of scenarios.