Faculty

Dr. Sinan Celiksu is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Program in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Prior to joining Rutgers, he held academic and professional positions, as a Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia University, Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Germany), Visiting Faculty at Humboldt State University, and worked as a financial crimes Intelligence Analyst.

Dr. Celiksu’s research examines the impact of globalization and neoliberalism on the criminalization of local populations and the rise of right-wing extremism. His work is informed by his anthropological field research in Italy, Kosovo, and Turkey. His teaching draws on his foundation in socio-cultural anthropology, expertise in data analysis, and practical experience in law enforcement.

Dr. Celiksu teaches courses in Introduction to Criminal Justice, Statistics, Research Methods, Crime Analysis, Culture and Crime, Comparative Criminal Justice, Corruption, and Cybersecurity.

Kevin Dahaghi is an Affiliated Professor in Criminal Justice, as well as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University. His research focuses on the dynamics between social contexts and organizations in the policy process, with an emphasis on punishment and criminal legal policies. His current work examines the origins and development of policies that shape differential exposure to the criminal legal system. His work has been published in Social Problems and Stanford Law Review. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021 and a B.A. in Sociology and Journalism from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in 2014. 

Criminal Justice courses taught:
Introduction to Criminal Justice
Crime & Public Policy

Teaching activities:
Provost’s Teaching Fellow
Classroom Inclusivity Badge (Level 1)
Teaching & Generative AI Badge (Level 1)
Intro to Learning Analytics Badge (Level 1)

Service work:
Program in Criminal Justice Awards Committee Chair
Fulbright Campus Advisor
Scarlet Service Internship Programs Reviewer
School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) Undergraduate Admissions and Scholarships Committee Member (2024-2026)

Mark Desire is both an Instructor in the Program in Criminal Justice, and an Assistant Director with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. He works in New York City’s DNA crime lab, the largest of its kind in North America. Throughout his 28 years with NYC, he has investigated thousands of criminal and missing persons cases. He is the manager of the World Trade Center DNA Identification Team, a unit dedicated to advancing the science and helping return loved ones to their families.

Desire holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in molecular biology, and his juris doctor from New York Law School. Mark has been recruited by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and several foreign countries to assist in locating the missing and designing protocol to further this ability.

Mark also serves on the Missing Migrant Identification Task Force at our nation’s border. Using his experience and knowledge, Mark created New York City’s Missing Persons Day. This is a multiagency event to bring together family and friends of missing persons for the purposes of collecting information to bring them home.

Mark has appeared on television and documentaries hundreds of times with features on Netflix, HBO, 60 Minutes and Time Magazine. For years, he has been sharing his journey as a motivational speaker.

Brian Donnelly earned his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, and his Bachelor of Science degree in Administration of Justice from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He became a member of the New Jersey Bar in 1997. Donnelly worked as a police officer for 27 years, and recently retired as a Captain for a police department in Union County. His tenure as a police officer and as a detective has included work with homicide, sex crimes, and narcotics for which he has received numerous valor awards and commendations. Donnelly is also currently Of Counsel with several law firms.

In addition to his course teaching with the Program in Criminal Justice, Donnelly has taught criminal justice and business law courses at Raritan Valley Community College for 23 years where he received the Faculty Success Champion Award several times. He has also taught at County College of Morris and Centenary College. For several years he was the lead instructor for the Port Authority Police Academy in the areas of Use of Force and Constitutional Law; moreover, while teaching at the Port Authority Police Academy, Donnelly wrote several policies in both areas.

Donnelly is most interested in constitutional law as it pertains to police-citizen encounters with a focus on 4th amendment arrest, search and seizure, and 5th amendment police interviews and interrogations. He enjoys blending his legal background with his police experience to give students a better understanding of criminal justice. Furthermore, Donnelly has a strong interest in the study of Police Use of Force and its various policies and case studies.

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and a Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice. Her research interests include human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Noura is an editorial committee member of the Journal for Palestine Studies and a co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an electronic magazine on the Middle East that combines scholarly expertise and local knowledge. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and in the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019).

Noura’s scholarly publications include: “Racism, whiteness, and burnout in antiracism movements: How white racial justice activists elevate burnout in racial justice activists of color in the United States" in Ethnicities; "New Imminence in the Time of Obama: The Impact of Targeted Killings on the Law of Self-Defense" in the Arizona Law Review; and "Overlapping Refugee Legal Regimes: Closing the Protection Gap During Secondary Forced Displacement," in the Oxford Journal of International Refugee Law. Her multimedia productions include the Black Palestinian Solidarity video and website as well as the Gaza In Context Pedagogical Project, featuring a short documentary. A full list of her scholarly publications can be found here. Her current research seeks to examine the activist praxes in contemporary renewals of Black-Palestinian solidarity as well as technologies of surveillance and counter-surveillance in greater East Jerusalem.

Noura served as Legal Counsel for the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives from 2007-2009. Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Noura received a New Voices Fellowship to work as the national grassroots organizer and legal advocate at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura worked as the Legal Advocacy Coordinator for the Badil Center for Refugee and Residency Rights from 2010-2013. In that capacity, she drafted their submissions to the human rights treaty bodies and lobbied the US Congress as well as diplomatic missions at the United Nations on their behalf.

Noura has appeared on CBS News, CNN International with Becky Anderson, CNN with Don Lemon, MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” "All In With Chris Hayes," "Ronan Farrow Daily," Fox’s “The O’ Reilly Factor,” NBC’s “Politically Incorrect,” PBS News Hour, NPR, BBC World Service, Democracy Now, and Al-Jazeera America, Arabic, and English. Her publications have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Review of Books, The LA Times, The Nation, USA Today, The Hill, Foreign Policy, Jezebel, Al Ahram English, Al Shabaka, MERIP, Fair Observer, Middle East Eye, The Interdependent, IntLawGrrls, The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, and Jadaliyya.

Noura earned her J.D. and undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa) and a LLM in National Security from Georgetown University Law Center (Distinction & Dean’s List). She also earned a LLM in Legal Education by completing the Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellowship at Temple University, Beasley School of Law.

Books:

• Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

Edited Anthologies:

• Aborted State? The UN Initiative and New Palestinian Junctures
  
• NGOs in the Arab World Post-Arab Uprisings: Domestic and International Politics of Funding and Regulation

This section is a portal for faculty information.

Anna Forster is a Learning Specialist and Educational Services Coordinator in the department of Academic Services for Student Athletes. Since July 2015, Forster has met with academically at-risk student-athletes, including members of the Rutgers football, wrestling, men's basketball, and women's basketball teams from freshmen to seniors, to assist with skill building and course content assimilation.

Forster holds an undergraduate degree in Women's Studies and Comparative Development Studies from Trent University and an interdisciplinary master's degree in Canadian Studies from Carleton University. In her MA thesis, she researched a project that applied social movement theory to understanding the history of the second wave women's movement in Canada. She subsequently completed an MA and PhD in Sociology at Rutgers University. Her MA paper examined Americans' attitudes towards working mothers, using logit regression modeling with General Social Survey data. Her dissertation research was a methodological investigation into the function of the concept in sociological study of gender, proposing new insights to guide conceptual development in this sociological subfield. In 2022, Forster completed an MEd in Counseling Psychology at the Graduate School of Education a Rutgers to update her credentials in the post-secondary student services field.

In addition to her work with student-athletes, Forster has worked as an undergraduate instructor at Rutgers for more than 20 years. At the New Brunswick campus she currently teaches the foundational course for Douglass Residential College students, Knowledge and Power: Issues in Women's Leadership, through the Women's, Gender, and Sexual Studies department, as well as classes at all levels on a variety of topics in the Sociology Department. Through Rutgers Statewide, she teaches research methods classes in the Criminal Justice Program at Brookdale Community College. Forster has also taught in the Writing Program in the English Department, the Political Science Department, and the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, with many years of experience teaching upper-level Sociology classes both in New Brunswick and at several off-campus locations.

Faculty Directory

Dr. Paul Hirschfield is an Affiliated Professor in the Program in Criminal Justice, as well as Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University in 2003. His research has focused on a broad range of topics pertaining to crime and justice with an emphasis on their relationship to youth, education, and social policy. Hirschfield’s work demonstrates that juvenile justice involvement adversely affects educational attainment among a sample of inner-city Chicago high school students, and explains large gender differences in high school dropout among sampled African-American students. Interviews he conducted with young ex-offenders explored the social and institutional interactions that help mediate the impact of juvenile justice contact on developmental outcomes and recidivism. His work is part of a larger research agenda that aims to uncover the causes and social implications of the widespread criminalization of adolescent deviance and school misconduct in the inner-city. In that connection, Hirschfield’s most recent research examines how aggressive, proactive policing influences children’s perceptions of the strength of prosocial norms in their neighborhoods, as well as their own attitudes toward and compliance with the law.

Hirschfield has participated in separate experimental evaluations of the impact of the Moving to Opportunity program and the Comer School Development Program on rates of juvenile court involvement. With support from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S. Department of Justice) and the Spencer Foundation, he is conducting a study of the impact of mainstream and alternative school re-enrollment on the reentry success of young ex-offenders in New York City. Hirschfield’s work has appeared in Criminology, Sociology of Education, Theoretical Criminology, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and others.

Dr. Jones received his bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, and master’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. In addition, he also has two PhDs. His first PhD is in Public Safety specializing in Criminal Justice, and his second PhD is in Criminal Justice with a specialization in Behavioral Sciences from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Prior to teaching at the collegiate level, Dr. Jones held various positions in the juvenile justice field in Maryland and New York City as Resident Advisor (Juvenile Corrections Officer), Case Management Specialist III (Juvenile Probation Officer), and Deputy Director of Operations and Director of Operations of a juvenile detention center (Juvenile Jail). Dr. Jones also has law enforcement experience as a Seasonal Police Officer in Ocean City, Maryland.

In additional to his practical experience, Dr. Jones has taught at multiple Colleges and Universities. He also has published three criminology textbooks, as well as many peer reviewed research articles. His research interests include criminal justice issues in social justice, police community relations, and criminology.

Lecturer Kohl started his career in the United States Marine Corps where he spent more than a year in Vietnam before joining the Detroit Police Department. He spent the next 20 years in Detroit working his way up the ranks in multiple positions, including the SRT/SWAT team and later as a legal advisor. After Detroit, Kohl held positions as the head of police and public safety departments in Michigan and Iowa. He also taught criminal justice courses at Michigan State University (MSU). As a police chief, he created a cadet program, recruiting cadets from MSU. Later at Rutgers, where he was hired to oversee all the public safety services including the police, he started the Community Service Officer (CSO) program, which over the years employed and trained thousands of students studying criminal justice courses at Rutgers. That unit created the motto of “Students Serving Students” and has become a community policing model that has been adopted by universities nationwide.

In addition to his policing experience, Kohl is also a firefighter and a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the National Fire Academy. He holds a master’s degree and a Juris Doctorate, and he became a member of the Bar in 1990. He has written articles on cross-training emergency responders, the duty to protect, and emergency management. Kohl is most proud of the number of his students that have excelled in their careers in private and public policing, and his students that changed their career aspirations after taking his Criminal Procedure class and went on to success in law school. Lecturer Kohl was recognized as the Lecturer of the year in 2024.

Kenneth Sebastian León is an Associate Professor of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers – New Brunswick. He specializes in crimes of the powerful and racialized social control, both within and beyond the formal boundaries of criminal justice institutions. Prior work related to the criminal justice system includes examining the extralegal factors of the federal death penalty, the policing of Latino men under the pretext of gang interdictions, and migrant detention in New Jersey during the coronavirus pandemic. His current research is supported by the National Science Foundation to study the impact of labor law and immigration policy on workers within the meatpacking industry.

León is a former research contractor at U.S. Department of Justice – National Institute of Justice and has extensive experience studying localized public safety challenges using qualitative and mixed methods approaches. These include medium and large-scale collaborative studies of the Colombian National Police, the Honduran National Police, U.S. jails, and the transnational capacity of MS-13 in the United States and El Salvador.

His scholarship appears in Annual Review of Criminology, Criminology & Public Policy, and Ethnography, Latino Studies among other outlets. His books include Corrupt Capital – Alcohol, Nightlife, and Crimes of the Powerful, and co-authorship of Class, Race, Gender, and Crime – The Social Realities of Justice in America. More information about his research, teaching, and advising can be found at www.ksebastianleon.com

Select Publications:

A Culture that is Hard to Defend: Extralegal Factors in the Defense of Federal Death Penalty Cases. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology (2017) 107(4): 643-686, w/ Jon B. Gould. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol107/iss4/3/

Carceral Ethnography in a Time of Pandemic: Examining Migrant Detention and Deportation. Ethnography (2022) 25(3): 314-334, w/ Ulla D. Berg and Sarah Tosh. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14661381211072414

Code of the Street 25 Years Later: Lasting Legacies, Empirical Status, and Future Directions. Annual Review of Criminology (2024). 7:1, w/ Jamie J. Fader. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-022422-123641

Conceptual and Empirical Obstacles in Defining MS-13: Law-Enforcement Perspectives. Criminology & Public Policy (2020) 19(2): 563-589, w/ Maya P. Barak and Edward Maguire. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12493

Latino Criminology: Unfucking Colonial Frameworks in “Latinos and Crime” Scholarship. Critical Criminology (2021) 29(1): 11-35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-020-09544-y

Migrant Detention and COVID-19: Pandemic Responses in Four New Jersey Detention Centers. Journal on Migration and Human Security (2021) 9(1): 44-62, w/ Sarah Tosh and Ulla D. Berg. https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211003855

Techno-Bureaucratic Race-Making: Latino (Mis)Representation in Criminology and Criminal Justice Knowledge Claims. Journal of Criminal Justice Education (2023) 34(3): 376-399, w. Andrea Gómez Cervantes. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2022.2155204

Publications:

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and faculty affiliate of the Criminal Justice Program at Rutgers University. I received my PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019. Generally, my research examines how local contexts shape human behavior and institutional action in the areas of criminology and international migration.

My current research focuses on the neighborhood and city-level correlates of crime, crime reporting behavior, and officer-involved shootings. I pay special attention to how socio-demographic characteristics, social policy, as well as the presence of civil society and religious organizations structure community dynamics and individual actors. Recently, I examined the impact of immigrant “sanctuary” policies on city-level violence in addition to their effects on the likelihood that individuals report crime victimization to law enforcement officials.

My research has appeared in various academic journals including American Sociological Review, Justice Quarterly, Human Rights Quarterly, and International Migration Review.

Dr. Michele Muni is a native of New Jersey and an avid New York sports fan. She earned her B.S. at The College of New Jersey and M.A. and Ph.D. from Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. She has spent a good part of her career studying how and why law enforcement agencies change their policies and practices. During the early part of her career, while at Rutgers, she worked for the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission’s Office of Parole and Transitional Services.

Since graduating Dr. Muni has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Richard Stockton University, an Assistant Professor at Holy Family University, and has taught courses at both Rutgers University and The College of New Jersey. Currently, she is a Research Scientist for the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

Dr. Muni’s research is focused on drug addicted offenders, prisoner reentry, and the process of changing law enforcement strategies and tactics. Her “for fun” academic activities include studying problem oriented policing, terrorism and homeland security.

Philip Nettl, Esq. is a practicing attorney in New Brunswick, with the law firm of Benedict and Altman. His practice focuses exclusively on Criminal Defense. He is a two-time graduate of Rutgers, having received his Bachelor’s Degree from Rutgers University, and his law degree from Rutgers Law School-Camden. He joined Benedict and Altman directly from law school in 2004, and has built up his experience in criminal cases ever since. Nettl’s first trial experience came in a capital murder trial, the last capital prosecution in Middlesex County. Since then, he has conducted numerous jury trials in both state and federal courts. His most publicized trial experience came while representing Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student accused of invading his roommate's privacy. In addition to representing clients at the trial level, Nettl also has an accomplished appellate practice, as he coordinates most of the appeals handled by the firm.

Nettl is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey, the Middlesex County Bar Association, and the New Brunswick Bar Association. He is also licensed to practice in Pennsylvania. He was recently appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey to the District VIII Ethics Committee, a volunteer organization of lawyers that investigates complaints of attorney misconduct in Middlesex County region. In 2010 and 2012, Nettl was named in New Jersey Super Lawyers magazine as a "Rising Star" in the field of Criminal Defense. In addition to teaching at Rutgers, he has been a guest lecturer at Brookdale Community College, and he lectures at Continuing Legal Education seminars for fellow attorneys.

Sean O’Connor earned his doctorate in educational leadership, management, and policy from Seton Hall University. He also holds an education specialist degree in educational administration as well as a master’s degree in human resource training and development, all from Seton Hall University. In addition to teaching at Rutgers, Dr. O’Connor also teaches graduate courses at Felician University. In addition, he has spoken at National Police Conferences on topics such as emotional intelligence, organizational culture, and organizational change.

Dr. O’Connor has been a New Jersey State Trooper for 25 years and is currently a Major assigned as the Troop “D” Commander. Dr. O’Connor is a graduate of the 276th Session of the FBI National Academy, and an active member of the FBI National Academy Associates NJ Chapter. Dr. O’Connor has also served as a member of the NJ Attorney General’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion.

Dr. O’Connor uses his police experience to facilitate a learning environment where students can engage each other in debate about various topics in the field of criminal justice. As a practitioner, he shares his experiences to help the students better understand the complex challenges associated with policing in the 21st century.

Biography

Dr. Matthew Sheridan, former Director of Highfields, holds a doctorate from Rutgers University. He has more than 35 years of experience working with both correctional adults and juveniles, advocates for education, and especially higher education in correctional institutions and upon release. He has served as Vice President of the Board for the New Jersey Association on Corrections, is an ad hoc consultant to Volunteers of America Delaware Valley and supports and encourages the use of evidence-based practices. Sheridan aligns with Convict Criminology and is a strong proponent for correctional reform and especially support for those being released from prison. Dr. Sheridan presents frequently on topics of abuse in corrections and careers in criminal justice. He has publications with Oxford University Press, Journal of Prisons and Prisoners, The Journal of Correctional Education, New Jersey Criminal Justice Educator, Justice Policy Journal, and Contemporary Justice Review.

Publications:

Luis R. Soto earned his Ed.D. ABD and MPA from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and his A.A. in Criminal Justice from Union County College. He worked for the New Jersey Department of Corrections for 25 years and held the highest custody rank of Major at Northern State Prison located in Newark, N.J. During his tenure with the NJDOC he has held many positions including Assistant School Director of the Correctional Staff Training Academy located in Sea Girt, N.J. Furthermore, he has been a Certified Instructor with the Police Training Commission since 2001.

In addition to his course teaching with the Program in Criminal Justice, Soto has taught criminal justice courses at Essex County College as a guest lecturer for the past 5 years. His interests in the field of Corrections deals mostly in the studies of recidivism rates and re-entry programs offered to released offenders.

Dr. Sheryl Van Horne is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Criminal Justice Department. Prior to working at Rutgers, she served as Program Director of Criminal Justice at two small liberal arts universities near Philadelphia, including overseeing the Inside/Out Program at one of them. Over the years she has taught around thirty courses, including Introduction to Criminal Justice, Policing, CJ Policy and Planning, Research Methods, Victimology and Domestic Violence, Wrongful Convictions, and Crime and Justice in the Media.

Dr. Van Horne received her B.A.s from Rutgers University-New Brunswick (majoring in Psychology, Sociology and then German) and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University’s School of Criminal Justice in Newark. Her dissertation focused on intimate partner homicides across the country. In the field, she has evaluated criminal justice related prevention programs and worked in the Planning Department for the Jersey City Police. Dr. Van Horne’s professional presentations and publications focus primarily on criminal justice related pedagogy, homicide, media portrayals of crime, and policing.

 Dr. Van Horne advises students on internships.

Biography

By way of introduction, I am a Professor at Rutgers University (USA) as well as a Visiting Professor at the Mannheim Centre for Criminology in the Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and the Institute of Criminology, Law School, University of Sydney (Australia). I have recently completed a trilogy of books titled: Visions of Prisons: Wars, Walls & Watching (2026), The Bastille Effect, Transforming Sites of Political Imprisonment (2022), and Escape to Prison: Penal Tourism and the Pull of Punishment (2015), all at the University of California Press.

For more information about Professor Welch, please visit his website www.professormichaelwelch.com.

Publications: