Department Updates
By Veronica Gonzalez Hoff
Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology
Criminal Justice Ph.D. Student Research Published in Top Industry Journal
Second-year Sam Houston State University criminal justice Ph.D. student Kathrine Meeker is continuing the conversation in adolescent sexual assault case processing with her latest publication in Justice Quarterly, a top-tier research journal in criminal justice. Meeker started her research in the criminal justice master's program with her thesis project, which also won the Graduate Student Paper Award with the American Society of Criminology - Division on Women and Crime. This is her first first-authored article with her research mentors and thesis committee Dr. Eryn O'Neal and Dr. Brittany Hayes.
Criminal Justice Professor Releases New Books
Sam Houston State University Criminal Justice Professor Mitchel P. Roth has just released his latest work, "Fire in the Big House: America's Deadliest Prison Disaster." It is the first comprehensive account of a major tragedy, long forgotten, in 1930 Columbus, Ohio. In the book, Roth explores the lives of prisoners and others as well as the political and social circumstances of the Ohio Penitentiary Fire.
Department of Forensic Science
Forensic Science PhD Student, Professors Test Beta DNA Analysis Kit
Forensic Science doctoral student Ryan Gutierrez and professors Bobby LaRue and Rachel Houston are featured on the web page of new cutting-edge instrumentation from Verogen, Inc., a leading company in designing solutions for forensic DNA labs.
The project was to determine how effective Verogen's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region kit, the ForenSeq mtDNA Control Region Solution, would be before it became available for purchase. This kit will help enhance the testing of degraded or seriously compromised DNA samples such as human remains that have been buried for decades and rootless hair shafts that current DNA testing does not provide.
Department of Security Studies
Security Studies Professors Present Hurricane Harvey Research in Italy
Two Security Studies professors presented their grant-funded research on Harvey at the Disaster Management Conference hosted by the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) in Ancona, Italy. Natalie Baker, assistant professor, and Magdalena Denham, clinical associate professor, presented their paper "Harvey Unstrapped: Managing Adaptive Tensions on the Edge of Chaos," currently in press for the WIT Transactions on the Build Environment publication. They coined the term "unstrapping," which is the process of the breakdown of formal structures and the emergence of filling structures.
