Alexis Russell Piquero (born May 6, 1970) is a Cuban-American criminologist who is professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

, where he is also Arts & Sciences Distinguished Scholar. He previously served as the

Ashbel Smith Ashbel Smith (August 13, 1805 – January 21, 1886) was a pioneer physician, diplomat, slave owner, and official of the Republic of Texas, Confederate officer and first President of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas. Smith was an an ...

Professor of Criminology at the

University of Texas at Dallas The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD or UT Dallas) is a public research university in Richardson, Texas. It is one of the largest public universities in the Dallas area and the northernmost institution of the University of Texas system. It wa ...

(UT-Dallas), where he was also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences. He has been ranked as the #1 criminologist in the world since 1996 by the number of peer-reviewed papers in criminology journals. In 2015, then-

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Eric Holder Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African America ...

appointed him to the

Office of Justice Programs The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that focuses on crime prevention through research and development, assistance to state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies, including law enforce ...

Science Advisory Board.

Education and career

Piquero received his B.A. in 1992, his M.A. in 1994, and his Ph.D. in 1996. All three of his degrees were in criminology and criminal justice, and he received all of them from the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. After teaching at

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

, the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

, the

John Jay College of Criminal Justice The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts c ...

, and other institutions, he joined the faculty of UT-Dallas in 2011. He left UT-Dallas for the University of Miami in 2020, where he first joined the faculty that August.

Research

The subjects Piquero has researched include the link between

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...

and violence. He has also co-authored a study showing that the arrest rate among

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

players is lower than that for the American male population aged 20 to 39. He has collaborated on several books, including the ''Handbook of Quantitative Criminology'' (edited by David Weisburd).

Honors and awards

Piquero has received the

American Society of Criminology The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is an international organization based on the campus of Ohio State University whose members focus on the study of crime and delinquency. It aims to grow and disseminate scholarly research, with members wo ...

's Young Scholar and E-Mail Mentor of the Year Awards. He has also been a fellow of the American Society of Criminology and the

Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) is an international association established in 1963 to foster professional and scholarly activities in the field of criminal justice and criminology. ACJS promotes criminal justice and criminology edu ...

since 2011. In 2018, he was inducted as a fellow into the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Editorial activities

Piquero serves on the editorial boards of more than a dozen criminology journals. For five years (2008-2013), he was the co-editor of the ''

Journal of Quantitative Criminology The ''Journal of Quantitative Criminology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of criminology. It was established in 1985 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editors-in-chief are John MacDonald and Gre ...

''.

Personal life

Piquero's parents migrated to the United States from

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

as exiles in the early 1960s. He is married to his colleague, Nicole Leeper Piquero.

References

External links

* Living people 1970 births University of Texas at Dallas faculty Cuban emigrants to the United States University of Maryland, College Park alumni Academic journal editors American criminologists University of Miami faculty {{Criminologist-stub