Project Aletheia

Professor Laurence Alison, Ph.D., University of Liverpool, UK, focuses on high-profile critical incidents, and has 28 years of experience working on applied projects for law enforcement and security services. He currently provides training to the FBI, CIA, and US military, as well as law enforcement and security authorities within the UK, including UK counterterrorism personnel and the British Army, in evidence-based interrogation methods.

Steven J. Barela is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) in the Department of History and Philosophy of Law and is also an Associate Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Barela is a co-editor of the sweeping volume Interrogation and Torture: Integrating Efficacy with Law and Morality capturing global insights on interrogation from science, law, and morality. Moreover, as Editor, he led the Chairperson’s Editorial Group on the “Principles of Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering” (Méndez Principles) and participated in the Drafting Groups.

Cal Corley is a former Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and head of the Canadian Police College, which provides advanced training to Canadian police services. With extensive operational and executive-level experience, he also served as the RCMP Senior Envoy to Mexico and the Americas, and on Canada’s Privy Council Office, within the Security and Intelligence Secretariat.

Timothy Janowick is the Deputy Mission Advisor for the Department of Justice, International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) Regional Program Office in Ukraine. He was the Chief of Police of the Mount Prospect Police Department in Illinois, is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), International Managers of Police Academy and College Training (IMPACT) Section, and is on the Advisory Board of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA).

Professor Pär Anders Granhag, PhD, Department of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research includes cognitive psychology, in particular human judgment and decision-making, memory, and meta-memory. He has also conducted extensive research on the psychology of deception, the psychology of interrogation, and the psychology of criminal investigations and the courts. He is the founder and director of the Research Unit for Criminal, Legal, and Investigative Psychology (CLIP), which has been singled out for its excellence in producing research.

Frazier Thompson retired in 2019 from the FBI as a Senior Executive with over 24 years of federal law enforcement service, including serving as the Director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) and the Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Training Center, with assignments to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is currently the Global Security Manager for a global Fortune 500 company.

Andrew Thompson is a Certified Fraud Examiner and Senior Investigator at a world-leading law firm that has prosecuted some of the most significant securities fraud cases in recent memory, including Boeing’s 737-Max safety issues and Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. His operational experiences developing HUMINT sources, interviewing homicide suspects, and providing close protection to heads of state have all been informed by his academic pursuits in psychology and law.

Robert McFadden is a 30-year veteran of the US federal law enforcement, intelligence, and counterintelligence communities and held several high-profile positions, including NCIS Deputy Assistant Director. He served in numerous assignments in the Near and Middle East and was the NCIS case agent for the investigation of the attack on the USS Cole, the 9/11 al-Qa’ida task force, and assisted in the investigation and interrogation of terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for trials before military commissions.

Mark Severino retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, as a Detective Supervisor in the Major Crimes Division after serving thirty-five years. Mark was frequently requested to assist the FBI and DHS in Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime investigations. Mark had coordinated investigations that were briefed at the highest level of the U.S. Government and had received international media attention by “The Wall Street Journal” regarding an investigation that involved terrorist funding. Mark has also provided classified briefing to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Intelligence, regarding complex investigations that originated from the City of Los Angeles. Mark served as liaison between the Los Angeles Police Department’s Major Crimes Division and the U.S. Government’s High Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

There are two active undercover police officers within a major metropolitan police department on the Advisory Council, whose names remain undisclosed for operational security reasons. Their undercover duties include counterterrorism operations, homicides, corruption, narcotic operations, and human trafficking. They have been training in HIG-sponsored interrogation techniques and have incorporated these techniques into their practice.

Adam S. Heyman has dedicated his nearly entire two-decade legal career to zealously defending people accused of every type of crime as a passionate criminal defense attorney. He is a founding partner of Heyman & Schueler, PLLC, a preeminent criminal defense law firm serving clients in federal court, Washington and New York State courts.  From 2017-2024, Heyman was a pioneering public defender at the prestigious King County Department of Public Defense’s Associated Counsel for the Accused Division in Seattle, Washington, where he tried complex cases to successful verdicts and helped train new attorneys. Prior to that, he was a high-profile public defender at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice in Brooklyn, New York, from 2005-2017. In 2010, he took a six-month sabbatical to help co-run a nascent public defender system in Nepal through the International Legal Foundation as a Kathryn Wadia Fellow. Heyman started his career as a corporate lawyer at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, from 2003-2005. Heyman is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Georgetown University, Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and co-starred in National Geographic’s two-part documentary series, “Criminal Defense,” about the work of public defenders in New York City in 2011. Heyman recently testified to the King County Council’s Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee on the urgent need for public defender caseload standards reform.  A fierce defender of every person’s right to a fair trial, Heyman has successfully litigated complex criminal cases that include a variety of constitutional issues, including police interrogation techniques. In 2016 in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Heyman was successful in admitting at trial Dr. Maria Hartwig’s expert testimony on the dangers of the Reid technique, garnering an acquittal in a high-profile arson trial where his client was facing life in prison despite oral, written and videotaped “confessions.”

Bruce Pitt-Payne honed his skills as a major crime investigator, interview specialist and advisor over his 26-year career with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He is a subject-matter-expert on investigative techniques including interviewing adults (witnesses and suspects) and children. For several years he was the Program Manager of Investigative Interviewing Training for the RCMP in British Columbia where he was instrumental in designing both the RCMP Phased Interview Model for Witnesses as well as a version for suspects, the intent being to transition to a more scientifically-supported process that would increase the quality of information received while reducing the potential for miscarriages of justice caused by unreliable or false confessions. 

Since retirement from the RCMP, Bruce has dedicated his time to consulting and teaching both public and private sector organizations the science/art of investigative interviewing. He has designed the curriculum for and presented investigative interviewing to both Canadian and international audiences. He is a licensed Private Investigator in the province of British Columbia. He and his family live in Maple Ridge, B.C. with their Frenchton Murphy and Bug Frankie. Bruce enjoys playing guitar and recording music in his home studio.

Mark A. Anderson is a former Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and Deputy Inspector General with the New York State, Office of the Inspector General. He was also a Senior Special Agent at the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Inspector General. He directed the interviewing programs at the Inspector General Criminal Investigator Academy (IGCIA) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) in Glynco, GA. Mark is currently the Director of Training and Development with Anderson Investigative Associates. He is a career interviewer in the audit and investigation arenas, who believes interviewing is a skill at the foundation of our best and most complete work.

His focus in training is science-based interviewing and interrogation. This is done with the goal of maximizing the quality and quantity of information that we obtain. He instructs in the areas of interviewing, interrogation, employee misconduct, ethics, investigation planning, public corruption, and other requested areas of investigation, audit, evaluation, human resources, compliance, and inspection work.

Jemma Williams

Jadaera Lorenzo

Karen Niremberg

Emily Ives

Jessica Palatnik

Jadaera Lorenzo

Karen Niremberg

Emily Ives

Jemma Williams

Amanda Malandruccolo