In a year dominated by COVID-19, popular research news played on questions of how things could get worse, or how we might leave this troubled planet altogether. Overall, news stories about WSU research that did the best still had a focus on real world impact.
CAS faculty featured in five of the top 10 most popular stories, and were well-represented in the next 90-plus press releases tracked by WSU News.
With the usual in-person gatherings unable to take place this year, faculty, staff, and students across the WSU system celebrated Veterans Day a little differently. Student-veteran Chris Mann produced a special video to share the traditional wreath placement at the WSU Pullman Veterans Memorial and to honor and thank veterans throughout the WSU community.
Mann, a senior majoring in psychology and criminal justice who spent eight years on active duty in the Marines fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is president of the » More …
Bill Gardner grew up on Pullman’s College Hill and thought for sure he was on track to be a teacher when he graduated from WSU. His father was a soil physicist at the University from 1950 to 1983. “I was 11 before I realized there were professions other than being a professor,” he says. “If I stood out at the end of my driveway, every house I saw had a professor living there.”
Gardner (’88, ’01 MA English), chief of Washington State University Police (and a published author), got into police work almost on a whim. He drove to the campus station with a friend who wanted to apply and decided » More …
“In criminology, we often have this urban bias. We assume big cities are the worst and paint other places as idyllic,” said Kathryn DuBois, associate professor at WSU Vancouver. “We tend to think in a continuum from urban to suburban to rural, but for intimate partner violence, it’s actually the suburban areas that are the safest, and small towns that have the highest risk.”
In a recent study, DuBois, analyzed the responses of more than 570,000 women from the National Crime Victimization Survey from 1994 to 2015. She found that women from small towns were 42% more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than women from the suburbs and » More …
An expert in comparative criminal justice and criminological theory, Melanie-Angela Neuilly began on August 1 a three-year term as chair of the WSU Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.
Neuilly brings a broad range of strengths, experience, and energy to her new role, said Matthew Jockers, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her leadership will help propel the department’s growth and interdisciplinary success.”
“My goal as chair is to coordinate, facilitate, and catalyze faculty’s work and to build bridges between » More …
As instances of online identity theft continue to rise over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, WSU criminologist Alex Kigerl is helping to shed light on the shady world of cybercriminals and how it operates.
A backstabbing crime boss and thousands of people looking for free tutorials on hacking and identity theft were among the more interesting findings in his study examining user activity on two online “carding forums,” illegal sites that specialize in stolen credit card information.
“The cybercrime marketplace, like most e-commerce, has continued to expand and » More …
A new book co-authored by Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Laurie A. Drapela offers guidance on how autism research can inform and improve juvenile justice policies in Canada and the United States. Both countries rely on decentralized systems of governance to craft and implement law and policy, but their treatment of » More …
A new study by WSU criminal justice researchers found increased drugged driving, greater youth access to marijuana, and insufficient officer training are a few of the concerns expressed by police officers in the first state to legalize recreational cannabis sales to adults. While the officers did not support recriminalization, they noted several issues with the implementation of Washington state’s 2012 law legalizing cannabis.
Researchers evaluated the effects of legalizing cannabis on the state’s law enforcement efforts and said the experiences of Washington officers could help inform other » More …
For more than 80 years, WSU has recognized ten of the top seniors in each graduating class. The class of 2020 honorees includes six College of Arts and Science students: Morgan Atwood, Elyse Bennet, Ana Karen Betancourt Macias, Kathryn “Katie” Doonan, Thomas LeClair, and Colin Taylor.
These women and men represent the highest standards in specific aspects of the college experience, including campus involvement, community service, athletics, and visual and performing arts.
Learn more about our Top Ten seniors and their plans for the future: » More …
In her 2019 edited book “Mothering From the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research,” WSU criminal justice associate professor Melanie-Angela Neuilly collected the experiences of academic researchers and mothers conducting their fieldwork while raising children. Neuilly’s own experience of juggling site work and motherhood in Nice, France, in 2014 is also chronicled.
Neuilly said she came to the book somewhat circuitously: In 2013, she obtained a WSU Seed Grant to conduct ethnographic field observations at » More …