Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship for Racial and Ethnic Diversity Award Recipients

The Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship for Racial and Ethnic Diversity is designed to encourage students of color, especially those from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the field, to enter the field of criminology and criminal justice, and to facilitate the completion of their degrees.

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1989:

  • Zina McGee, Tulane University

1990:

  • Sandra Lee Browning, University of Cincinnati

1991:

  • Tonya Y. Williams, University of Delaware

1992:

  • Recipient – Jacqueline F. Huey, Florida State University
  • Runner-Up – Clarice Bailey Weisbord, Portland State University
  • Runner-Up – Victor W. Bumphus, Michigan State University

1993:

  • Angela M. Moore, University of Maryland

1994:

  • Lisa Sanchez, University of California, Irvine

1995:

  • Diego Orlando Castro, Arizona State University
  • Lisa M. Poupart, University of Arizona
  • Vidella White, Wayne State University

1996:

  • Steve Cureton, Washington State University
  • Christine Martin, Loyola University of Chicago
  • Bruce Wilson, Sam Houston State University

1997:

  • Douglas E. Thompkins, University of Iowa
  • Kecia Johnson, North Carolina State University
  • Martha Henderson, University of Cincinnati

1998:

  • Julie C. Abril, University of California, Irvine
  • Veronica M. Herrera, University of Arizona
  • Maria B. Velez, Ohio State University

1999:

  • Ingrid K. Bennett, University at Albany
  • Kenneth E. Fernandez, University of California, Riverside
  • Edwardo Portillos, Arizona State University

2000:

  • Cynthia Bejarno, Arizona State University
  • Robert A. Brown, University of Cincinnati
  • Brittawni Olson, University of Nebraska – Omaha

2001:

  • Alexes M. Harris, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Sang H. Kil, Arizona State University
  • Claudia Emilia Lavenant, University of California, Irvine

2002:

  • Alejandro A. Alonso, University of Southern California
  • Helen Ahn Lim Indiana, University, Bloomington
  • Deanna M. Perez, University of Maryland

2003:

  • Donald T. Hutcherson, II, Ohio State University
  • T. “Lorraine” Latimore, North Carolina State University
  • Assata-Nicole Richards, Pennsylvania State University
  • Claudio G. Vera-Sanchez, University of Illinois – Chicago

2004:

  • Denise D. Nation, University of Cincinnati
  • Tomson Nguyen, University of California, Irvine
  • Holly Ventura, University of South Carolina

2005:

  • Leigh K. Nakama, University at Albany
  • Elizabeth Trejos-Castillo, Auburn University
  • Yaschica Williams, Western Michigan University

2006:

  • Rachel Dioso, University of California, Irvine
  • Flora Myamba, Western Michigan University
  • Evelyn Patterson, University of Pennsylvania
  • Zoua Vang, Harvard University

2007:

  • Ericka Adams, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Jennifer Cobbina, University of Missouri – St. Louis
  • Jocelyn Fontaine, American University

2008

  • LaDonna M. Long, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Eduardo Moncada, Brown University
  • Rita C. Shah, University of California, Irvine

2009:

  • Amanda Gendon, University of Missouri – St. Louis
  • David Glisch-Sanchez, University of Texas at Austin
  • Yvonne Isom, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Xavier Perez, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Latosha Traylor, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Morghan Velez-Young, Stanford University

2010:

  • Amada Armenta, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Vicki Coffey, University of Illinois – Chicago
  • Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, University of Toronto

2011:

  • Aubrey Jackson, Ohio State University
  • Reuben Miller, Loyola University of Chicago
  • Heather Washington, Ohio State University

2012:

  • Chris Dum, State University of New York – University at Albany
  • Alana Gunn, University of Chicago
  • Jay P. Kennedy, University of Cincinnati

2013:

  • Jorge Martinez, University of Washington
  • Shaun Ossei-Owusu, University of California, Berkeley
  • Zahara Shekarkhar, University of Florida

2014:

  • Brittany Friedman, Northwestern University
  • Janet Garcia, Rutgers University
  • Janice Iwama, Northeastern University

2015:

2016:

2017:

2018:

2019:

2020:

2021:

Popy BegumPopy Begum, Rutgers University-Newark

Popy Begum is a doctoral student at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark. She graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a B.A. in International Criminal Justice and Certificate in Dispute Resolution. Popy earned the MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice (Research Methods) from the Centre for Criminology, Oxford University in England. Among Popy’s broad interests are (1) intersectionality of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion; (2) the comparative role of crime and justice phenomena across multiple societies (e.g., South Asia, West Africa, the Balkans, the United States and the United Kingdom); and (3) qualitative methods. She has explored the experiences of victims and survivors in forced marriages in the United Kingdom and United States, the role of West African and Balkan women in human trafficking networks, and most recently, for her dissertation, she conducted a mixed-methods study of Muslim and Hindu sex workers in New Delhi, India using participant observations and 102 in-depth interviews via Respondent-driven Sampling.

Popy has won dozens of awards for excellence in research, teaching, mentoring and service. Her research has been supported and recognized by organizations locally and internationally, including the Howard League for Penal Reform, the American Society of Criminology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Religious Research Association, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Popy’s work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including Trends in Organized Crime, Social Policy and Society, and edited volumes published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses.

Alondra Garza, Sam Houston State University

Alondra D. Garza, M.A. is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University (SHSU). Her research focuses on victimology, specifically the criminal legal response to violence against women with attention to how the social stratification of victims (e.g., gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, legal status, etc.) influences responses, treatment, and decision-making. Her recent scholarly work has appeared in a variety of mainstream and specialty journals including Crime & Delinquency, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Policing: An International Journal, and Violence Against Women, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence, among others. Alondra has been recognized University-wide by SHSU and received the Outstanding Master’s Thesis award. Most recently, she was selected as the 2020 recipient of the Graduate Scholar Award from the Division of Women & Crime of the American Society of Criminology and as the recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Victimology Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Maria Valdovinos

Maria Valdovinos, George Mason University

Maria Valdovinos Olson is a doctoral candidate in public sociology at George Mason University and a member of the Movement Engaged Research Hub at the Center for Social Science Research. Her research interests include policing, prisoner reentry, and evidence-based policy. Maria’s dissertation comprises a series of essays on criminal legal reform and prisoner reentry in the era of decarceration and movement toward abolition. She is currently collecting data in support of an essay addressing the question of how existing and envisioned social systems and social policies might organize the provision of care for the formerly incarcerated under a larger paradigmatic shift from punishment-oriented responses to care-oriented ones. Other interests span into issues of safety, health, and wellness associated with the criminal legal system, focusing on both practitioners and individuals who have had direct system involvement. Recent work has been published in Women & Criminal Justice, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management and is forthcoming in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. Maria has been recognized as a Stanford Lyman Scholar (MSSA), Ruth D. Peterson Fellow (ASC), and Dean’s Challenge Scholar (Mason).