Ms. Spencer-Mork is a socio-cultural anthropologist with specialized training in gender issues and sociolinguistics, the understanding of human communication in social context. Carolyn's training in anthropology provides a strong background in both qualitative and quantitative research, as well as powerful insights into the interpretive frameworks of jurors from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, she is fluent in Russian.
Carolyn provides jury consulting on case themes, case evaluation through jury research and post-trial interviews of jurors and has been involved in ongoing witness preparation work with a large multinational corporation.
As a Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Research Fellow, Carolyn conducted extensive ethnographic field research in Russia. Her research focused on how people translate social needs and evaluations of social problems like health care into monetary measures–in other words, how morality and money intersect.
Carolyn has found that her research translates directly into understanding how jurors who may share similar evaluations of evidence nevertheless have strikingly different ideas about how social damage should translate into monetary compensation. She is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association.