PhD Student
Daniel Chu
PhD / Clinical Masters student working on how visual diet shapes decision making in face recognition.
daniel.l.chu@student.unsw.edu.auPeople
The people behind the research
The IDeA Lab brings together researchers and students studying face recognition, memory, identity decisions, evidence, and human–AI interaction.
UNSW Sydney · Part of the UNSW Forensic Cognition Group · Applied identity research
Director
Dr James Dunn
ARC DECRA Research Fellow and Lecturer
UNSW Sydney
Research focus
Face recognition · Memory · Identity decisions · Human–AI interaction
James leads the IDeA Lab at UNSW Sydney. His research examines how people make decisions about identity and evidence in real-world contexts.
His work connects cognitive science with applied problems in policing, security, digital identity, legal evidence, and public understanding of AI.
Part of the UNSW Forensic Cognition Group.
PhD students
Current doctoral researchers
Student projects
Honours and coursework masters
Honours and coursework masters students contribute to experiments, data collection, analysis, and applied projects across face recognition, eyewitness memory, AI-generated faces, forensic science, and identity decisions.
Honours
Current honours students
- Calista Gandi
- Michelle Alimhamzah
Coursework masters
Current masters students
- Amelia Cressey
Research contributors
Current research assistants
- Cecilia Wang
- Saakshi Koul
Alumni
Former students
Students who have contributed to research in the IDeA Lab across honours, masters, and PhD projects.
PhD
- Anita Trinh
Masters (Coursework)
- Kate Quadrio
- Taylor Mansour
- Jaclyn Heinrich
- Ayden De Courcey
Honours (Psychology)
- Paul Cheng
- Martin Nguyen
- Cecilia Wang
- Michelle Cheng
- Grace Lanyon
- Holly Braico
- Daniel Chu
- Taylor Mansour
- Seng Hong Koh
- Monique Piggott
- Kiah How
- Edmund Lau
- Cathy Fei
- Anita Trinh
Honours (Engineering)
- Chelsea He
- Darren Huo
Collaborators
Research collaborators
The lab is part of the UNSW Forensic Cognition Group and collaborates with researchers across Australia and internationally.
UNSW Sydney
A/Prof David White
Face perception and individual differences in facial identification.
View websiteUNSW Sydney
Prof Richard Kemp
Eyewitness memory, forensic evidence, and identity decision-making.
View profileUniversity of Queensland
Dr Alice Towler
Facial image comparison, expertise, and forensic decision-making.
View profileMacquarie University
Dr Bethany Growns
Forensic decision-making, evidence evaluation, and expertise.
View websiteAustralian National University
A/Prof Amy Dawel
Face perception, emotion, AI-generated personas, and deepfakes.
View profileUniversity of Lincoln
A/Prof Kay Ritchie
Face recognition, person perception, and individual differences.
View profileJoin the lab
Interested in joining or collaborating?
We supervise a limited number of student projects in identity, face recognition, memory, evidence, and AI.