Student Involvement
Alyssa Whitby Chamberlain
Alyssa is a third year doctoral student in the department of Criminology, Law & Society. She earned an M.S. in Justice, Law & Society at American University and a B.A. in American Studies at Brigham Young University. Prior to entering the doctoral program at UCI, Alyssa worked as a research associate at the Urban Institute and as an IRB administrator at UCLA. Alyssa has also worked on a number of research projects at UCI's Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, including an evaluation of the use of GPS technology for high risk sex offenders, an assessment of California's prison and parole programs, and a comparison of the performance of different GPS technology systems for the monitoring of sex offenders. Alyssa's primary research interests are in corrections and the consequences of crime in communities.
Ashley Demyan
Ashley Demyan is a doctoral student in the department of Criminology, Law and Society. Prior to arriving at UCI, she received her B.A. and M.A. in Sociology/Criminology from Ohio University. Her masters thesis was a case study of a prison dog program at a minimum-security institution in Ohio. Ashley's main research interests include rehabilitation, the sociology of punishment, and aging offenders. She began working at the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections in Winter 2009.
Kari Ferver
Kari Ferver is a third year doctoral student in Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. in Criminology, Law & Society from UC Irvine in 2006 and is currently finishing up her M.A. in Social Ecology. Her thesis examines how medical billing data affect the quality of healthcare research. She is interestd in many areas of study in criminology, especially comparative criminology and white collar crime. She started working for the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections in Fall 2008 and is conducting research in the area of parole violation.
Darin Haerle
Darin is a doctoral student in the department of Criminology, Law and Society. She received her BA in Psychology and Kinesiology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her MS in Criminal Justice from the University of North Texas. Darin is primarily interested in applied research, specifically the rehabilitation of violent juvenile offenders, juvenile sentencing reform, prison desegregation, and other topics in the area of corrections. Her current project with the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections is an evaluation of the Parole Violations Decision-Making Instrument.
Randy Myers
Randy Myers is a doctoral student in Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. Randy received his B.A. in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine in 2005 and will complete his M.A. in Social Ecology in summer 2008. He has been a graduate research assistant at The Center for Evidence-Based Corrections since the summer of 2006. During his time at CEBC he has assisted with data collection and analysis for various projects, including the San Diego GPS Pilot Program and the CPAP Assessment of CDCR Recidivism-Reduction Programs. His research interests include criminological theory, correctional reform and juvenile justice issues.
Marisa Omori
Marisa is a doctoral student in the department of Criminology, Law and Society. She has a master's degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay School of Criminal Justice--the City University of New York, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Occidental College. Marisa is interested in applied criminal justice research, particularly drug policy. Her current project with the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections is a cost analysis of high risk sex offender parolees on GPS monitoring devices.
Lori Sexton
Lori Sexton is a third year student in the department of Criminology, Law and Society. Lori received her BS in Human Development from Cornell University, and her MA in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. For her Masters thesis, Lori used data from the Australian Reintregrative Shaming Experiments to examine the effects of restorative justice conferences on offenders' respect for the law. Lori has also worked on various research projects at UCI, including program evaluations for California in-prison and parole programs, a comparison of one- and two-piece GPS units for high risk sex offender parolees in California, and an examination of collective identity and efficacy among transgender inmates in California state prisons. Lori's main interests are in the areas of incarceration and social justice.
Sarah Smith
Sarah Smith is a doctoral student in Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. She received a Master of Arts degree in Sociology with a concentration in Criminology from The George Washington University. At GWU, she completed a qualitative study of a restorative justice program as her Master's thesis. Her research interests include corrections, prisoner re-entry, criminological theory, restorative justice, and juvenile justice. She has served as a research assistant for the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections for the past year.
Matt Valasik
Matt graduated from the Ohio State University with a B.S. in Zoology, a B.A. in History and a B.A. in Criminology. He is currently a 2nd year graduate student in the CLS department and is interested in parole, recidivism, collective efficacy, life-course theory, re-entry, corrections and the community. Matt has worked at the Center since December 2007 and has participated in the CPAP Assessment of CDCR Recidivism-Reduction Programs and helped with interviewing HRSO parolees for the GPS study.
