Rate My Professor Jessie Gwynne

Jessie Gwynne serves as a Clinical Psychologist in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Team at Student Health, University of Otago, located in Dunedin, New Zealand. She joined the Student Health team in 2022, contributing to the wellbeing services for students. Her professional contact details are direct dial +64 3 479 8212 and email jessie.gwynne@otago.ac.nz.

In her academic contributions, Jessie Gwynne has focused on developmental psychology and forensic contexts for children, as well as offender rehabilitation. She is a co-author on the 2019 publication 'Developmental Differences in Children’s Learning and Use of Forensic Ground Rules During an Interview About an Experienced Event,' published in Developmental Psychology, volume 55, issue 8, pages 1626–1639 (DOI: 10.1037/dev0000756). This study involved 240 children aged 6 to 11 years who were taught four forensic ground rules prior to a mock interview about an event experienced five weeks earlier: 'It’s okay to say I don’t know,' 'It’s okay to say I don’t understand,' 'Tell me everything that really happened,' and 'Tell me only things that you are sure really happened.' Results revealed developmental differences, with older children (9–11 years) demonstrating better learning and application of the rules compared to younger children (6–8 years). Co-authors included Deirdre A. Brown from the University of Otago Department of Psychology, Charlie N. Lewis from Victoria University of Wellington, Michael E. Lamb from the University of Cambridge, and Oliver Kitto and Meghan Stairmand from the University of Otago. Furthermore, Gwynne led authorship on 'Life on parole: The quality of experiences soon after release contributes to a conviction-free re-entry,' published in 2020 in Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (DOI: 10.1002/cbm.2182), which analyzed early post-release experiences of parolees from a high-risk prisoner cohort and identified factors linked to avoiding reconviction during the first year of supervision.