We are pleased to announce that Jennifer Krentz received the Governor General’s Silver Medal at Simon Fraser University’s June Convocation. The medal, presented by the Governor-General of Canada, is awarded to the two students whose records are the most outstanding in the graduating classes in any faculty in the university.
Jennifer completed her BA in psychology with a 4.27 average. Her honour’s thesis, co-supervised by Dr. Tonia Nicholls and Dr. Ron Roesch, examined how frequently experts attended to empirically-validated risk assessment measures and individual risk/protective factors (measured using the HCR-20 & the START) within expert reports to courts and review boards for patients found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) in a Canadian jurisdiction. The HCR-20 was used in most reports and more HCR-20 items were mentioned than would be expected given prior research. Results also showed significantly more START Vulnerabilities were mentioned than START Strengths, suggesting experts may be inadequately addressing protective factors in NCRMD reports. Jennifer has collected several accolades demonstrating the excellent work she accomplished, including being awarded second place for the Best Undergraduate Paper Award by the American-Psychology Law Society (AP-LS, 2020). She also presented her findings at the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services (IAFMHS) conference in June, 2021.
Congratulations Jennifer for your outstanding achievements!