As the new Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology, I wish you a happy fall!

For those of you who don’t know me, this is the start of my 18th year as a Criminology professor at Villanova University. Over the years, I have taught a variety of courses, including Introduction to Criminology, Juvenile Delinquency, Police and Society, Crime and Delinquency Prevention, Applied Research, Data Analysis, Criminological Theory, and Senior Seminar. My main area of research is school crime and violence, including studies that examine student delinquency and victimization, interpersonal and cyber bullying, school climate, school-based delinquency prevention, and school discipline and security.

I would love to chat with any and all of you! For current students and local alumni, my open office hours are Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 8:45 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., and you can always email me to schedule a different time if needed. For other alumni, you can send me an email or call me at 610-519-5299.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Allison Ann Payne, PhD

Professor and Chair

Congratulations to our student award winners!

Meredith Bergey, PhD, Lance Hannon, PhD, Allison Ann Payne, PhD, and Kelly Welch, PhD, were all awarded summer research grants through the University Summer Grant Program. Drs. Bergey and Hannon worked on a project titled “Exploring Policy Variation in the Selection of External Reviewers for Tenure Cases in the Sciences.” Dr. Payne is conducting research on important gaps in the research on school climate. Dr. Welch is working on a project titled “Minority Threat and School Suspension: Diffuse and Targeted Effects of Static and Dynamic Racial and Ethnic Composition.”

Melissa Hodges, PhD, along with coauthor Pilar Gonalons-Pons, PhD (University of Pennsylvania) was awarded a two-year National Science Foundation grant for a project titled “The Care Work System as a Fundamental Cause of Economic Inequalities.”

Ken Chih-Yan Sun, PhD, was promoted to Associate Professor and won three awards for recent publications.

Rick Eckstein, PhD, was quoted in an article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 18 about the increasing problem of unruly parents at high school sporting events. He was also featured in an article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sept. 22 about the United Auto Workers strike and its similarity to local strikes in the Philadelphia area. 

Lance Hannon, PhD, participated in a Driving Equality Accountability Group that spoke about the Driving Equality Law passed last year in Philadelphia intended to improve police and community relations. The story was featured on news outlets such as NBC.

Redistricting Data Hub released reports estimating the impact of prison gerrymandering in 10 states without statewide prison gerrymandering reforms. The data used to generate the reports was created by Rory Kramer, PhD, Brianna Remster, PhD, and research associate Denise Wilson. The data was also used by NC Counts Coalition and featured by Southern Coalition for Social Justice in their national press kit on prison gerrymandering. 

Max Osborn, PhD, published two chapters in an edited book titled The (Mis)Representation of Queer Lives in True Crime; a solo chapter titled “Difficult, Deceptive, and Dangerous: Portrayals of Victimized Transgender Men in Crime News Coverage” and a chapter with coauthors Christina DeJong, PhD and Harnoor Kaur, PhD titled “Trans Panic: The Representation of Trans Women as Murder Victims in True Crime Podcasts.”  

Allison Payne, PhD, and Kelly Welch, PhD, recently published a paper in Crime and Delinquency titled “Minority Threat in Schools and Differential Security Manifestations: Examining Unequal Control, Surveillance, and Protection.”

Ken Chih-Yan Sun, PhD, recently published the following: