Hylke Jellema

About me

Hi there. I’m Hylke Jellema. My research is about ‘rational criminal proof’. In other words, when are criminal facts proven & how can we avoid reasoning mistakes and judicial errors? My PhD thesis (defended cum laude) focused on the question how we can combine the two most popular theories of rational criminal proof: Bayesian and explanation-based accounts. I’m currently working on several related topics, including proof standards for recidivism risk, the tension between truth-finding and efficiency in criminal investigations and the use of Bayesian networks to study legal reasoning. Within the ‘Preventing Miscarriages of Justice’ project, I help develop and empirically test a course for judges on how to avoid probabilistic reasoning fallacies.

Outside of the academic walls, I enjoy (among many other things) chess, bouldering, camping, and walking with my dog, Tara.