Theresa Gannon

Theresa A. Gannon is a British academic psychologist and chartered psychologist, and is a full professor at the University of Kent specialising in forensic psychology, especially of deliberate firestarters and sexual offenders. Gannon is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and was awarded the British Psychological Society's Division of Forensic Psychology Lifetime Contribution to Forensic Psychology Award.

Academic career

Gannon completed a degree in psychology at the University of Birmingham. In her third year she was 'fascinated' by a lecture on forensic psychology. She completed a PhD titled Cognitive distortions in child sexual offenders: fact of fiction? at the University of Sussex in 2003. Gannon then undertook a four year postdoctoral fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington, working with psychologist Tony Ward on the psychology of sexual offenders, before returning to the UK. Gannon worked Kent and Medway Social Care and Partnership NHS Trust, working with a wider range of different type of offenders in a medium secure unit.

Gannon is interested in sexual offending in men and women, and the cognitive behaviour of deliberate firesetters.

She describes providing a treatment plan for a sexual offender, but realising that he had a history of arson, and had never been treated specifically for it. This encounter prompted her to explore what reoffending rates were for people who deliberately set fires, and what treatments were available for them.

Honours and awards In March 2015 Gannon was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Gannon and her team won the Outstanding Impact on Society Award at the Economic and Social Research Council Celebrating Impact awards in 2016, for "research on deliberate firesetters and a resulting treatment programme". Gannon planned to use the award to translate the standardised treatment programme into other languages.

In 2019 the British Psychological Society's Division of Forensic Psychology awarded Gannon their Lifetime Contribution to Forensic Psychology Award.

Selected works

Books

Journal articles

Theresa A Gannon; Mark E Olver; Emma Alleyne; Helen Butler; Victoria Lister; Caoilte Ó Ciardha; Katie Sambrooks; Nichola Tyler (16 December 2022). "The Development and Validation of the Firesetting Questionnaire." Journal Of Psychopathology and Behavioural Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-022-10011-x