Dr. Eric Hickey Welcomes Potential Students

Welcome to the Center for Forensic Studies! We look forward to exploring the possibilities with you. The growing fields of criminal psychology, criminal profiling, and criminal justice (among many others) need well-trained forensic psychologists, and we can provide that education and training to you.

Our doctorate program in forensic psychology was the first of its kind in the U.S., and we continue to be a leader in the field. Our program emphasizes the scholar/practitioner model, meaning our curriculum is based on best practices and scholarly literature, and that students are mentored to work with practitioners to implement and test research findings. This model guides the application of scholarship to the practice of forensic psychology.

Center for Forensic Studies faculty are experts in their fields. With 50 core and adjunct faculty, we offer expertise in the more than 40 areas of specialization in forensic psychology, including prison psychology, correctional psychology, police psychology, investigative psychology, criminal psychology, terrorism, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, clergy and teacher sex abuse, sex offenders, jury selection, expert witness, detection of malingering, and more.

With strong encouragement from CFS faculty, our students are presenting at national and international professional conferences, are publishing as co-authors with faculty in peer-reviewed journals, and are developing key professional contacts. They are actively researching for Alliant institutes such as the Sex Crimes and Paraphilia Institute, as well as for major news organizations who request our help. At CFS we place an emphasis on international study for our students. We have established a course in South Africa with forensic and investigative psychologist Gerard LaBouchagne, Ph.D., head of the Investigative Psychology Unit for the South African Police Service--and there are more international opportunities for our students.

Center for Forensic Studies graduates go on to fascinating careers. They work in prisons, for the FBI, police, family courts, district attorney and public defender offices. They are researchers, professors, and expert witnesses. There are local, state, federal, and international opportunities for our graduates, with a growing demand for their services and expertise.

The Center for Forensic Studies at Alliant International University is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). We are a non-profit fully accredited institution of higher learning. The American Psychological Association does not currently accredit schools of forensic psychology. APA only accredits doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology--however we have actively structured our program to meet APA guidelines. This includes ensuring that we meet or exceed APA standards of academic rigor, faculty qualifications and field training.  Further, we are the only program in the U.S. that requires all of our introductory classes in forensic psychology to be taught by faculty who are board certified in forensic psychology.

At the Center for Forensic Studies, you can be assured of a rigorous academic experience combined with expert mentoring from faculty and challenging field placement. We have programs at our Fresno, Irvine, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and soon San Francisco (Fall 2009) campuses. We look forward to receiving your application.

Should you have any questions, please send me an email. Thank you for your interest in the Center for Forensic Studies.

Eric Hickey, Ph.D.

Systemwide Director

Center for Forensic Studies

Eric Hickey, Ph.D.
Systemwide Director
Center for Forensic Studies

Dr. Hickey has taught many courses in criminal personalities, sex crimes, homicide and psychopathology in universities, colleges, jails and prisons and supervises theses and dissertations involving forensic and criminal psychology.

Dr. Hickey has considerable field experience working with the criminally insane, psychopaths, sex offenders and other habitual criminals. He has also served as an adjunct instructor for the American Prosecutor's Research Institute at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina profiling stalkers, cyber-stalkers, criminal personalities and sexual predators.

He publishes books, articles and lectures extensively on the etiology of violence and serial crime. His book, Serial Murderers and Their Victims, 4th ed., Thomson/Wadsworth Publishers, is used as a teaching tool in universities and by law enforcement in studying the nature of violence, criminal personalities and victim-offender relationships. Another of his books, The Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime, Sage Publishers, explores the phenomenon of murder and violence through the eyes of some of the world’s most noted experts. In 2006, he published Sex Crimes and Paraphilia (Prentice-Hall Publishers), a comprehensive examination of sexual perversions, sex offending and sexual predators. His latest coauthored book, The Myth of a Psychiatric Crime Wave, (Carolina Academic Press) examines the misperceptions and reality of the mentally ill and mentally disordered as criminals.

Dr. Hickey is currently writing another text examining criminal minds and criminal personalities. He is also writing his first novel, In Sane, a disturbing journey into the minds of psychotics, psychopaths and the criminally insane.

Dr. Hickey is co-founder of Gambaru Productions and is developing a new television series, Predators, to assist crime survivors (See predators.tv).

Dr. Hickey's expertise is regularly sought by the media and is quoted in our NewsCenter. He consults with private agencies and testifies as an expert witness in both criminal and civil cases. A former consultant to the FBI's UNABOM Task Force, Dr. Hickey currently assists local, state, and federal law enforcement in training and investigations. 

He conducts seminars for agencies involving the profiling and investigating of sex crimes, arson, robbery, homicide, stalking, workplace violence and terrorism as well as workshops for mental health practitioners. Internationally recognized for his research on multiple homicide offenders, Dr. Hickey has conducted seminars in several countries including Canada, England, France, and Japan. He has also trained VIP protection specialists in Israel in profiling stalkers. His research involving hundreds of victims of stalking examines the psychology and classification of stalkers, victim-offender relationships, intervention, and threat assessment.