Amanda Hughett

Amanda Hughett is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. Her research and teaching focus on law, social movements, and the U.S. criminal justice system. Prior to UIS, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at SUNY-Buffalo's Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy (2015-2017) and was a Law and Social Sciences Doctoral Fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.

Her current book project, Silencing the Cell Block: The Making of Modern Prison Policy in North Carolina and the Nation, examines the intersection of civil liberties advocacy and prison policy reforms in response to prisoner activism during the 1960s and 1970s. This work was selected for the American Society for Legal History's Wallace Johnson First Book Program.

• Awards: 2018 Law & Society Association Dissertation Prize
• Professional Contributions: Expertise in legal history, prison reform, and social justice movements

Her scholarship bridges legal institutions, social activism, and policy evolution, with particular attention to marginalized voices in the criminal justice system.