Department of Society, Culture, Crime, and Justice Studies

Homicide, Offending Escalation, Crime Scene Pattern Analysis, Criminal Investigations, and Criminology.

My research to date has focused on the prior criminal offending of single-victim and serial homicide offenders in order to determine if those with similar patterns in their criminal histories go on to commit similar behaviors at the homicide crime scene(s). My research is part the growing international field of Investigative Psychology that focuses on the classification of violent crime according to objective behaviors at the crime scene and offender characteristics. This work seeks to advance offender profiling as an empirical pursuit with a focus on both theoretical implications and investigative applications. My work has resulted in a number of publications appearing in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, Homicide Studies, Victims and Offenders, Journal of Criminal Psychology and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

I have collaborated on research projects with both national and city law enforcement agencies in the past and hope to establish similar collaborations in the region for future projects. My future research will continue to focus on offending escalation preceding a homicide or homicide series and its link to crime scene behavior, as well as offender differentiation according to sub-types of homicide. My research interests and ongoing projects cover a variety of areas related to the criminal justice system broadly and homicide specifically, including antisocial lifestyle indicators among homicide victims, and the role of forensic evidence in the identification and arrest of homicide suspects, as well as the influence of popular crime dramas on the criminal justice system.

PhD, City University of New York - 2009.