Affiliated Researchers

Heidi S. Bonner, Ph.D.

Dr. Bonner is an Instructor in the Department of Criminal Justice in the College of Human Ecology at East Carolina University. She earned her doctoral degree  in criminal justice from the University at Albany, SUNY where she was the recipient of the Walter M. Francis Policing Award in 2007 and the Lt. John F. Finn Scholarship in 2009.  Her research focuses on the administration of the criminal justice process, with a particular emphasis on policing. Most recently she has focused on understanding police decision making behavior and is finishing a dissertation that examines the process of police decision making in dispute resolution encounters. She also has an interest in evaluating the effects of programs and policies on police management and operations. Prior to coming to ECU, Ms. Bonner was an analyst at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services where she was part of a team tasked with monitoring and evaluating the effects of the 2009 Rockefeller Drug Law Reform. She also previously worked as a research assistant at the University at Albany’s Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center and later served as a Senior Analyst at the John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety (Albany, NY) where she was involved in a number of projects including an evaluation of a civilian review process. She is currently working with the Finn Institute on an NIJ-funded project which measures procedural fairness and how it can be incorporated into police accountability systems.

Shelagh E. Dorn

Ms. Dorn, a doctoral student at the University at Albany, is employed at a fusion center as a senior supervising intelligence analyst. She has worked extensively in the intelligence analysis training field as an instructor and as a subject matter expert and has previous experience in law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services. Her areas of interest include: intelligence-led policing; evaluation research; law enforcement best practices; intelligence and fusion centers; and accountability mechanisms, satisfaction levels, and performance measures. Mrs. Dorn has served as a coordinator or research assistant for a variety of research projects through the University at Albany, including an evaluation of one city’s Citizen Police Review Board, the Police Early Warning System Project, the Albany Police Department Police Services Project, and the Capital District Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program.

Chris Harris, Ph.D.

Dr. Harris currently works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at UMass Lowell. He holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice from the University at Albany. His research interests are primarily in police performance and public perceptions of police, as well as evaluation research of various police initiatives. He has been involved in research with various police departments in New York State, including serving as the principal research analyst for Project Safe Neighborhoods in Syracuse, as well as an analyst for the Crime Analysis and Problem Solving partnership between the Albany police department and the University at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice. Chris was the recipient of the University at Albany School of Criminal Justice’s Distinguished Dissertation and the Walter M. Francis Policing awards.

Shelley S. Hyland

Ms. Hyland is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, while serving as an Adjunct Instructor at Argosy University Online and Brandman University. She has worked as a data analyst for the past eight years in the fields of criminal justice, kidney transplant, health policy and psychology. In addition, she was a crime analyst for the Schenectady Police Department in New York and a Graduate Research Assistant at the University at Albany. She holds an M.A. in Forensic Psychology and a M.A. in Criminal Justice.

MoonSun Kim, Ph.D.

Dr. Kim is currently an Assistant Professor at the State University of New York College at Brockport. He earned his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the University at Albany. Dr. Kim’s research interests include program evaluation, international criminal justice, crime and spatial analysis, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He has an extensive background in statistical and spatial analysis, from which the Institute’s work benefits through his collaboration in examining the effectiveness of strategic and programmatic crime reduction initiatives, such as gun interdiction patrols, wireless video surveillance, and safe passage initiatives.

John D. McCluskey, Ph.D.

Dr. McCluskey is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the University at Albany in 2002. His research interests include procedural justice, compliance, and criminology. He has worked as a consultant and researcher with a variety of criminal justice agencies throughout the U.S. That research has included the process and outcome evaluation of delinquency intervention programs, violence reduction initiatives, and community partnership-building efforts. His ongoing work with the Detroit police department is focused on a National Institute of Justice sponsored evaluation of a gun-violence reduction effort in that city.

James Frank, Ph.D.

Dr. Frank is a member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Dr. Frank is a professor at the University of Cincinnati. He received his J.D. from Ohio Northern University in 1977 and Ph.D. from the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University in 1993. He is presently the Director of the University of Cincinnati Center for Criminal Justice Research. Dr. Frank’s primary research interests include understanding police behavior at the street-level, the formation of citizen attitudes toward the police, and the use of evolving technology by patrol officers. Dr. Frank has published policing articles in Justice Quarterly, Police Quarterly, Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Crime and Delinquency and Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategy and Management.