Expertise and Credentials
Scientific Expertise in the Service of Legal Practice.
Scientific Research Expertise
Julien Musolino, Ph.D. is a cognitive scientist, author, and public speaker who holds a dual appointment as a tenured full professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He has more than two decades of experience conducting research in cognitive science, with work spanning psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and, increasingly, questions at the intersection of mind and law.
Dr. Musolino’s research addresses foundational questions about human agency, memory, belief, reasoning, and language, with a focus on core topics in human cognition. His work has resulted in more than 60 publications, including over 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals, and has been presented widely at major scientific conferences and invited lectures around the world (United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia).
His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition to scholarly publications, he is the author of the popular science book The Soul Fallacy (2015) and the editor of The Cognitive Science of Belief (2022).
Over the course of more than a decade, Dr. Musolino has also served as an expert for the French national research agency (ANR), including two consecutive years as Vice President of the evaluation committee on human cognition, where he helped assess, rank, and select projects for funding across multiple scientific disciplines.
Teaching and Pedagogical Expertise
Dr. Musolino has more than two decades of teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels at leading research universities, including the University of Maryland, the University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, and Rutgers University. His teaching spans a wide range of topics in cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics with a sustained focus on helping students develop rigorous, evidence-based ways of thinking about the mind and human behavior, as well as the implications of scientific conclusions for questions of broader societal importance.
He has taught courses on human cognition, language, and reasoning; critical thinking; the cognitive science of belief; psychology and the law; the scientific image of persons; and consciousness and the self. These courses emphasize conceptual clarity, empirical reasoning, and the careful evaluation of evidence—skills that are directly relevant to legal analysis, adjudication, and institutional decision-making.
At Rutgers University, Dr. Musolino has taught more than 3,000 students across undergraduate and graduate programs. His teaching has been recognized with multiple university-level honors, including the Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education Award from the School of Arts and Sciences (2018) and the Rutgers Chancellor’s Award for Impact in Teaching (2020).
Science Communication Expertise
Dr. Musolino has extensive experience communicating scientific ideas to broad public audiences. He is the author of the popular science book The Soul Fallacy (2015), which examines the implications of the scientific worldview for traditional conceptions of persons, including questions about free will, moral responsibility, scientific explanation, and their broader social consequences.
He has appeared on national television, participated in public debates, and delivered public lectures and invited talks around the world. In 2021, Dr. Musolino was invited to speak at the Vatican’s Fifth International Conference, alongside figures such as Anthony Fauci, Chelsea Clinton, and the late Jane Goodall, as part of a global dialogue on science, ethics, and human responsibility.
His work has been discussed in popular magazines, and he has been a guest on radio and podcast programs in the United States and internationally. Across these venues, Dr. Musolino’s focus has been on making complex scientific ideas accessible without distortion, and on fostering informed public discussion grounded in evidence and careful reasoning.
Expertise in Legal Applications
New Jersey State Bar Association — ADR Day 2025 (Keynote Address)
Keynote presentation introducing the The Analytics & Behavioral Litigator (ABL) Framework, a novel evidence-based framework for legal strategy. The presentation showed how tools from behavioral science and data analytics can be integrated to improve mediation strategy, reduce bias, and support more precise evaluation of risk, expected value, and expected utility.
Mercer County Bar Association — 2025 CLE Panel on Non-Economic Damages
CLE panel presentation on the scientific foundations of emotional distress and dignitary harm. The discussion addressed intake evaluation, causation analysis, credibility assessment, and the limits of commonly used defense tools such as IMEs and psychological testing.
New Jersey Association for Justice — Boardwalk Seminar 2025 (Invited Presentation)
Invited presentation introducing a novel scientific framework for dignitary harm that challenges the traditional physical–psychological divide and translates cognitive science insights into practical litigation strategies for presenting dignitary harm.