Janet Lynn Lauritsen is an American criminologist and the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the

University of Missouri–St. Louis The University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL) is a public research university in St. Louis, Missouri. Established in 1963, it is one of four universities in the University of Missouri System and its newest. Located on the former grounds of Bel ...

Education and career

Dr. Lauritsen received her B.A. (1982), M.A. (1984), and Ph.D. in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

(1989) from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. After serving as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois (1989–1990), she joined the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the

University of Missouri-St. Louis A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

as an Assistant Professor in 1990. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1996 as well as to full Professor in 2002. In 2013, Dr. Lauritsen was named a Curators’ Distinguished Professor – the 13th in the university's history – in the nationally ranked Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice. Lauritsen served as Executive Counselor of 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 ...

from 2004 to 2007. At present, she is the Co-Editor of the journal ''Criminology'' (2016–Present) as well as serves on the editorial board 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 ...

'' (1994–2016).

Research

Dr. Lauritsen's research focuses on the causes and consequences of victimization, the social and historical contexts of crime and victimization, and quantitative research methodologies. Her current research analyzes how correlates of violent victimization such as gender, race and ethnicity, and poverty status have changed in the US over the past four decades. Recent publications cover topics on crime data and trends, gender inequality and violence against women, and the relationship between changing economic conditions and violent victimization.

Honors and awards

Over her professional tenure, Dr. Lauritsen has received a number of prestigious awards and fellowships. As a doctoral student (1985), she her work was recognized with Second Place in the Gene Carte Student Paper Competition Award,

. As a university faculty member, she was the recipient of the 2002 Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching –

State of Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

University of Missouri System The University of Missouri System is an American state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, and ten research and technology parks. Nearly 70,000 students are cur ...

, as well as the 2012 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research (2012), UMSL. In 2010, Lauritsen received the Claude S. Fischer Award for Excellence in ''

Contexts ''Contexts'': ''Understanding People in their Social Worlds'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal and an official publication of the American Sociological Association. It is designed to be a more accessible source of sociological ideas ...

'' for a book review she co-authored with her UMSL colleague Richard Rosenfeld. Lauritsen has thrice been named a

Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of crim ...

Visiting Research Fellow (i.e., 2002–2004, 2005–2006, and 2011–2014) as well as a National Associate of the National Research Council (NRC) (2011),

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

– where she most recently served as Chair (2014-2018) of the NRC's Committee on National Statistics Panel on ''Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics'' In recognition of her distinctive scholarly contribution to the discipline of

criminology Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...

, Dr. Lauritsen was named a Fellow of the

in 2013.

References

External links

Faculty page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lauritsen, Janet Lynn University of Missouri–St. Louis faculty American criminologists Living people University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni American women social scientists American women criminologists Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women