Directors
John Hipp
Faculty Page
Professor
hippj@uci.edu
Charis E. Kubrin
Faculty Page
Professor
ckubrin@uci.edu
Graduate Students
Elliott J. Alvarado
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. His research interests include immigrant offending and assimilation, specifically focusing on the “assimilation paradox,” white-collar crime, and life course theory. He earned a B.S. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Arizona State University and an M.S. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from San Diego State University.
Email: elliotja@uci.edu
Christopher J. Bates
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. He has been a proud anteater for over six years. For more information on Chris’ education and research interests visit here.
Email: batesc@uci.edu
Benjamin J. Forthun
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Ben is interested in the mechanisms linking neighborhood structure to behavior and improving measurement bias through the development of perceptually meaningful units of spatial analyses.
Email: bforthun@uci.edu
Cheyenne Hodgen
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She earned her M.S. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Portland State University, specializing in crime analysis and mapping. Her research interests include spatio-temporal patterns of crime, the relationship between crime and place, and the relationship between the built environment, crime, and fear of crime.
Email: chodgen@uci.edu
Xiaoshuang (Iris) Luo
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She has a diverse background with a B.S. in financial management and economics, work experience in intellectual property agencies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include neighborhoods and crime, crime mapping and spatial analysis, and quantitative methods.
Email: xiaosh.luo@uci.edu
Daniela Kaiser
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She holds a B.A in Sociology from the University of the Republic (Uruguay), a B.A in International Studies from ORT University (Uruguay), and an MPhil in Criminological Research from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include incarceration, reentry and reintegration into communities, as well as the effects of criminal justice contact on various life outcomes, families and communities.
Email: dkaisero@uci.edu
Joelle Kofdarali
is a masters student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She earned a B.S. in Geography with a minor in Criminology at California Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her research interests include domestic violence, particularly in the Middle East, juvenile delinquency, as well as how culture and cultural processes affect crime.
Email: kofdaral@uci.edu
Juan Sandoval
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. His research examines the influence of community supervision, the accuracy of criminal record data across public and private platforms, the socio-historical construction of stigma, and criminal justice operations in rural communities. He holds a B.A. in Criminology from the University of New Mexico, an M.A. in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University- Newark, and has experience as a criminal justice practitioner.
Email: jrsando1@uci.edu
Justin Sola
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society who serves as an Editorial Assistant for Sociological Perspectives, as a Graduate Representative to the School of Social Ecology, and who previously served as Graduate Representative for the department. His research interests include the generation and maintenance of socioeconomic inequality and testing theories of how and why people seek security. He is actively researching 1) gun desirability, 2) how carceral contact affects inequality, 3) heterogeneity in desire for police services, 4) the epistemology of mixed-methods social research, and 5) how Americans consume security through training, equipment, and group membership.
Email: justin.sola@uci.edu
Rebecca Tublitz
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Barnard College and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include corrections, criminal justice policy, spatial analysis, and community contexts of crime.
Email: rtublitz@uci.edu
Yuki Wang
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She received her B.A. in Agriculture Science and Economics from Guangdong Ocean University (China). She earned an M.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from University of Macao. Yuki is interested in temporal and spatial analysis of crime to inform more optimized policing strategies.
Email: yqwang1@uci.edu
Kyle Winnen
is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society. He received his B.A and M.A.S in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include in the effects of criminal law and legal policies on at-risk youth and indigent communities, how advances in technology change communities/crime rates, and understanding systemic racism as a pervasive issue within the criminal justice system.
Email: kwinnen@uci.edu
Laboratory Alumni – Graduate Students
Adam Boessen
received his Ph.D. in 2014 in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His research focuses on neighborhoods and the community context of crime, spatial analysis, social networks, and juvenile delinquency.
Website: www.adamboessen.com
Christopher Contreras
received his Ph.D. from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society in 2021. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His research and teaching interests focus on neighborhood disorder, drugs and crime, public policy, and the community context of crime.
Alyssa Chamberlain
received her Ph.D. in 2012 in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and is now an Associate Professor at Arizona State University in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Here is an article describing some of the research she did while at UCI.
Navjyot Gill
received her Ph.D. in 2023 in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at the California State University at San Francisco. Bridging the fields of criminology, critical geographies, and sociolegal studies, her work complicates literature on neighborhoods and crime by interrogating how organized abandonment and organized state violence further marginalize racialized people through the reformulation of the shadow state and carceral state.
Website: https://cj.sfsu.edu/people/navi-kaur
Rupa Jose
received her Ph.D. in 2017 in the Department of Psychology & Social Behavior. She was a post-doctoral researcher in the Division of Global Health in the School of Medicine at UC San Diego. Her research interests include domestic violence, social support, and juvenile delinquency. She is now an Associate Behavioral and Social Scientist at RAND in Santa Monica, CA.
Young-An Kim
received his Ph.D. in 2018 in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and is now an Assistant Professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. He received a B.A. in Urban Sociology from University of Seoul (South Korea) and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso. His research interests are crime and community, sociology of health, urban sociology and multilevel statistical models.
Website: http://youngankim.weebly.com/.
Rylan Simpson
received his Ph.D. from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society in 2019 and is now an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. His research interests include policing, neighborhoods and crime, and experimental designs to explore the impact of police accoutrements on perceptions of the police.
Website: http://www.rylansimpson.com
Seth A. Williams
received his Ph.D. from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society in 2022. He is currently in a Post-doctoral Research Associate position in the Department of Sociology (and Center for Health and Biosciences) at Rice University. His research focuses on segregation, social capital, social control, neighborhood mobility and urban change.
Website: https://www.sethawilliams.com/
James Wo
received his Ph.D. from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society in 2017. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Iowa. His research and teaching interests are in criminology, collective mobilization and social action, research methods and statistics, and urban sociology with an emphasis on neighborhoods and crime.