Faculty

• 
• Kevin Dahaghi
• Assistant Professor of Sociology
• Faculty Office Hours:

  By Appointment Only

• Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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
• Assistant Teaching Professor of Criminal Justice, Forensic Science Advisor
• Areas of Specialization: Forensic Science
• Office: Lucy Stone Hall, Room A353
• Campus: Livingston Campus
• Faculty Office Hours:

  M 4:30pm - 5:30pm

  T 4:30pm - 5:30pm

  W 4:30pm - 5:30pm

  Th 4:30pm - 5:30pm

• Phone: 848-445-4276
• Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Education: J.D. New York Law School, M.S. Allegheny, B.A. Rutgers University

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 M. Donnelly
• Lecturer
• Office: Lucy Stone Hall, Room A347
• Campus: Livingston Campus
• Faculty Office Hours:

  F 10:00am - 11:00am

• Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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
• Professor of Africana Studies
• Areas of Specialization: International Law, Humanitarian law, Human rights law, National Security Law, Refugee law, Critical race theory
• Office: TBD
• Campus: Livingston Campus
• Faculty Office Hours:

  W 10:30am - 12:30pm

• Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Education: J.D. and undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and a LLM in National Security from Georgetown University Law Center. LLM in Legal Education upon completing the Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellowship at Temple University, Beasley School of Law

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

• Media:

  Select list of TV media interviews:

  • Interview with CBS News about the US Embassy Move to Jerusalem
  • Democracy Now Interview about the Trump Administration’s Announcement that Israel is Sovereign over the Syrian Golan Heights
  • Washington Post Video Op-Ed: Palestinians Want Freedom Just Like Anyone Else Would
  • CNN International Interview about the Killing of 58 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
  • Australia Broadcasting Corporation Interview about Hamas and Prospects for Peace
    
    

  Select list of Op-eds and Magazine Essays:

  • Washington Post: Marc Lamont Hill and the Legacy of Punishing Black Internationalists
  • New York Times: Military “Solutions” Force Others to Live With Terror
  • LA Times: Trump can’t broker Mideast peace by withholding aid from Palestinians
  • Nakba Files: The Nakba and Anti-Blackness
  • The Nation: Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza Debunked