My name is Erin Tinney, and I had the pleasure of knowing Anat at the beginning of my graduate school career. I am currently finishing my dissertation, which was supported by the inaugural Anat Kimchi Memorial Graduate Award in 2022. In this dissertation, I explore the impacts of justice system involvement on educational outcomes among youth in Maryland. I am exploring my future career options as I approach graduation, but regardless of which path I decide, I strive to continue Anat's legacy by pursuing equity and justice for those in the legal system.

Dixin Li is now a doctoral candidate. She earned her M.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland in 2023.
As a graduate assistant under Dr. Robert Stewart, Dixin is actively involved in projects focusing on the political participation of individuals with criminal justice contacts. She also collaborates with Dr. Brian Johnson and Dr. Greg Midgette in publications. 

In her ongoing doctoral research supervised by Dr. Johnson, Dixin investigates her original "rippling effect" hypothesis, examining complex interactions within the criminal justice system over time. Specifically, she scrutinizes the impact of progressive prosecution reform efforts in Cook County, highlighting concerns about the allocation of discretion and potential resistance from courts and police adjusting their decision-making in response.

Beyond her academic commitments, Dixin currently holds the role of Graduate Student Representative for the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department.

<<text>>

<<text>>

Sara-Laure Faraji is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. Broadly, her research focuses on evaluating the effects of laws, policies, and programs on crime and the criminal justice system. As her specific interests include research related to vulnerable populations, she has published on the effects of homeless shelters on surrounding crime rates, and her dissertation focuses on examining the influence of defendants' sartorial choices on legal authorities' decision-making. For the latter, she employs experimental methods and exploits arrest and court records. Last November, supported by the Dr. Anat Kimchi Travel Award, Sara-Laure discussed her doctoral research at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Philadelphia.

I am currently working on finishing my dissertation, which the Travel Award helped support my presentation on this project at the Western Society of Criminology earlier this month. My dissertation topic is: 

Exploring Contextual Effects of Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) on Crime: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in New York City

Torri Sperry is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. She currently works as an embedded analyst for the Prince George's County Police Department, and is working on several projects with the Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center (MCRIC). Some of her current projects include analyzing the role of social media and offline violence in DC and Baltimore, impacts of police corruption and municipal divestment on Baltimore residents' perceptions of contemporary policing, racial disparities in the identification and reporting of behavioral health crises, challenges to violent crime control at the DC/PGPD border, distance to trauma care and consequences for shooting fatalities, the role of recreation center closures on youth crime in Baltimore, and developing a workload analysis plan for Annapolis Police Department. Her dissertation analyzes the relationships between the racial disparities in police killings of civilians, community levels of violence, and racial composition, and how these factors are moderated by whether the community is urban, rural, or suburban. Her dissertation also analyzes whether national attention to police use of force against Black civilians is associated with increases or decreases in police killings of civilians, and whether that is moderated by the local context.