I am an Associate Professor at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice.

My research, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, examines how psychological processes, perceptions, attitudes, and social contexts influence the criminal justice system, particularly in relation to courts, sentencing, and forms of punishment broadly defined.

I primarily examine these issues, using interdisciplinary methodologies, in relation to three areas: 1) how psychological and social phenomena influence public perceptions, support, and subsequent consideration of practices, policies, and the philosophical foundations surrounding sentencing; 2) how psychological and social phenomena influence the decision-making and discretion of criminal justice actors in courts, particularly during sentencing; and 3) how psychological and social phenomena bear on motivations for and effects of expanded forms of legal and social punitiveness beyond the formal punishment stages of the criminal justice system.

I received my Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. Before Penn, I graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Government and Mind, Brain, and Behavior, and I served as a CIRGE research fellow at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.