About

Jodi Quas is a Professor of Psychological Science and Nursing Science at the UCI School of Social Ecology. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on memory development in early childhood, the effects of stress and trauma on children's development, and children's involvement in the legal system. Her work aims to enhance identification and interventions for vulnerable children and families, improve legal responses for child witnesses, victims, and suspects, and understand how stress influences memory in children and adolescents. Professor Quas's research interests include strategies to improve children's narrative productivity and accuracy, the impact of stress on children's memory, emotional regulation, and physiological reactivity as predictors of coping and memory for stressful events. She investigates jurors' perceptions of child witnesses and the consequences of legal involvement on these children. Her collaborative projects explore how stress and development affect children's and adolescents' memory and reporting tendencies, effective questioning tactics for eliciting disclosures from youth victims, and the influence of chronic adversity on coping, rumination, and memory. Her work also examines the links between maltreatment, emotional competence, and emotional regulation in children, contributing valuable insights into child development, trauma, and legal processes.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Developmental psychology
• Psychiatry
• Medical emergency
• Demography
• Environmental health
• Social psychology
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• Exploring interviews with adolescent victims of human trafficking: interviewer questions and adolescent reluctance

  Psychiatry Psychology and Law · 2026-05-14

  articleSenior author
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• Legal Questioning of Adolescent Victims of Minor Sex Trafficking Versus Sexual Abuse

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2026-04-23

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• Challenges to identification and interviewing of suspected youth victims of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking

  2025-05-30 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Although growing attention has been directed towards the problem of sex trafficking, particularly of minors, numerous challenges remain concerning how best to identify and intervene on behalf of victims and prosecute traffickers. In this chapter, we discuss challenges surrounding identification of minor victims of sex trafficking. We begin with a review of the unique characteristics of victims, notably in terms of how those characteristics do not conform to common trafficking stereotypes. We then describe research concerning laypersons’ and non-legal and legal professionals’ knowledge of unique victim characteristics and trafficking, given that such knowledge is likely crucial to these individuals’ ability to identify victims. Finally, we discuss new findings concerning how suspected minor victims are questioned about trafficking and how they respond. We close with recommendations for both research and practice related to improving knowledge, identification, and interviewing of minor victims of sex trafficking.

  PublisherDOI

• Legal Questioning of Commercially Sexually Exploited Boys in Court: A Case Study

  Journal of Human Trafficking · 2025-07-30

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Lay perceptions of child witnesses: effects of presentation of rapport building in forensic interviews

  Psychiatry Psychology and Law · 2025-11-23

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  =12.3, 47% female), recruited via Prolific, read a forensic interview transcript of a child's disclosing sexual abuse that varied interviewer rapport (high, moderate, minimal) and child age (5, 9, 13 years). Participants in the high rapport condition rated the child as more credible and felt more positively about the interviewer, and the 5-year-old was perceived most favourably. Overall, positive effects of rapport building extend beyond their influence on children's accounts. Presenting rapport building to jurors may help bolster a child's credibility, though other factors (e.g., child age) remain important.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Laypersons' perceptions of sex trafficking victimisation and attribution of blame

  Legal and Criminological Psychology · 2025-10-21

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Purpose A recurring challenge to combatting the significant problem of commercial sex trafficking, especially of minors, lies in identifying actual victims. Public campaigns have increased awareness of the occurrence of trafficking, but the depiction of victims often invokes stereotypes that fail to match characteristics known to be associated with experiences of trafficking, such as high levels of mistrust of authorities, prior victimisation, delinquent histories and uncooperativeness. We examined the extent to which the latter characteristics (i.e., delinquency and uncooperativeness) impact the general public's ability to identify minor victims of trafficking and to whom the public attributes responsibility when such characteristics are present. Method A total of 425 adults read vignettes alluding to trafficking that varied in references to delinquency (present vs. absent) and cooperation (high vs. low) of a minor victim and rendered decisions about what happened and who is to blame. Results When minors were described as delinquent, participants saw the minor as more likely to have committed a crime and as responsible for their situation. When minors were described as cooperative, participants viewed the adult as more likely to have committed a crime and as more responsible. Delinquency and cooperation did not interact to influence perceptions, but women placed more responsibility on the adult and held more pro‐victim attitudes than men. Conclusions Overall, lack of knowledge among the public regarding common victim characteristics seems to undermine the public's ability to identify some victims, highlighting the need for greater accuracy in awareness campaigns.

  PublisherDOI

• Knowledge of and Attitudes About the Dependency System: Comparing Court Appointed Special Advocates and Dependency‐Involved Parents

  Child & Family Social Work · 2025-12-02

  articleSenior author

  ABSTRACT Involvement in the juvenile dependency system—the system in the USA serving children removed from parents because of substantiated maltreatment—requires navigating complex processes. Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) may be appointed by judges to support children and provide court recommendations. CASA support can be critical to children and case decisions, yet little is known about CASAs' knowledge of and attitudes towards the dependency system. We examined CASAs' knowledge and attitudes, comparing these to those of dependency‐involved parents, another group whose understanding and perspectives are central to outcomes. Participants ( N = 169, 71 CASAs and 98 parents in ongoing cases) from a suburban US west coast county completed questionnaires assessing their ability to define common dependency terms and explain what was happening in a physical abuse case vignette. Legal attitudes were measured via statements on procedural and distributive justice. CASAs demonstrated greater knowledge and more positive court attitudes, even after accounting for demographic and socio‐economic factors. Group differences likely reflect the distinct roles and experiences of CASAs versus parents. CASAs are required to attend training classes. Parents have attorneys but are not gleaning as much knowledge from them or the court. Parents may benefit from additional resources and advocates similar to CASAs, potentially improving engagement, understanding and outcomes for families in the dependency system.

  PublisherDOI

• Improving Outcomes for Vulnerable Children and Families: Applying what We Learned About the COVID-19 Pandemic and Child Maltreatment

  Child Maltreatment · 2024-05-07

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In this special issue, innovative research teams expanded work on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns on child maltreatment by assessing these effects on treatment and service delivery following maltreatment, on the professionals responsible for identification and treatment, and on the systems responsible for oversight and instruction. One theme that emerged across these studies concerned challenges faced by professionals as they attempted to evaluate families and provide service and support. Organizational leadership was crucial in helping these professionals navigate challenges in a positive and productive manner. A second theme concerned remote service delivery. Findings suggested that remote maltreatment assessments, treatment, and court procedures all worked to some degree. Thus, despite the massive social disruption caused by the pandemic and lockdowns, parents, professionals, and systems were able to adapt and address core needs of children and families. In future work, it may be important to consider how these findings and their implications vary depending on the type of maltreatment children experienced. Doing so would allow for more nuanced understanding of the consequences of significant national and global crises on child maltreatment and would enable clearer recommendations regarding how best to protect children and support families during such events.

  PublisherDOI

• Using an AI-based avatar for interviewer training at Children’s Advocacy Centers: Proof of Concept

  Child Maltreatment · 2024-06-18 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  = 68) took part in a virtual reality (VR) study in which they questioned an avatar presented as a child victim of sexual or physical abuse. Of interest was how interviewers questioned the avatar, how productive the child avatar was in response, and how interviewers perceived the VR interaction. Findings suggested alignment between interviewers' virtual questioning approaches and interviewers' typical questioning behavior in real-world investigative interviews, with a diverse range of questions used to elicit disclosures from the child avatar. The avatar responded to most question types as children typically do, though more nuanced programming of the avatar's productivity in response to complex question types is needed. Participants rated the avatar positively and felt comfortable with the VR experience. Results underscored the potential of AI-based interview training as a scalable, standardized alternative to traditional methods.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Human Trafficking and the Passage of the 2000 TVPA: A Comparative Analysis of Prosecution of Sex Trafficking, Child Pornography, and Sexual Abuse Cases

  Journal of Human Trafficking · 2024-04-04 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We examined changes in patterns of federal prosecutions of sex trafficking cases, including the success of those prosecutions, between 2000, when congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protections Act (TVPA), and 2020. For comparison purposes, we evaluated changes in federal child pornography and sexual abuse prosecutions over the same time. Across all case types, the number of prosecutions increased through the early 2000s and decreased after 2012 though 2020. This decrease occurred slightly later and was proportionally more dramatic for sex trafficking than for child pornography and sexual abuse. The success of prosecutions for all three case types was high, although for trafficking cases, success decreased post 2015, a potentially concerning trend given that the number of cases prosecuted also decreased. Finally, most cases ended in convictions, typically via plea deals. Sex trafficking cases were slightly less likely to be pled, but among pled cases, plea discounts occurred. Neither of the latter trends varied over time, suggesting consistency in outcomes, especially among trafficking cases. Results highlight areas of potential success linked to the TVPA but also areas of ongoing concern and a need for continued improvement in federal efforts to prosecute sex trafficking.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Testing the Value of Rapport Building to Enhance Adolescent Disclosures in Online and In-Person Interviews

  NSF · $613k · 2021–2025

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: Balancing Costs and Benefits of a New Method of Eliciting Children's Disclosures

  NSF · $12k · 2012–2013

• Stress, Physiological Reactivity, and Memory Across Development

  NSF · $345k · 2007–2011

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Understanding Youth Engagement in the Plea Process: Predictors and Consequences

  NSF · $223k · 2015–2019

• NIH Grant R03HD040870

  NIH · $140k · 2005

Frequent coauthors

• Thomas D. Lyon

  79 shared

• Gail S. Goodman

  University of California, Davis

  57 shared

• Lindsay C. Malloy

  23 shared

• Allison D. Redlich

  22 shared

• Elizabeth Rush

  Rowan University

  22 shared

• W. Thomas Boyce

  University of California, San Francisco

  22 shared

• Robin S. Edelstein

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  19 shared

• Kelli L. Dickerson

  University of California, Irvine

  19 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of California, Davis