Nicole Nguyen

Nicole Nguyen is Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she also serves as Associate Head of her department. As a feminist geographer, she ethnographically investigates the intersections of national security, war, and US public schooling, with particular focus on how counterterrorism policies have contributed to the militarization of schools, expansion of the security state, and weaponization of courts as counterterrorism tools.

Her research interests include government surveillance, anti-Muslim racism, effects of the global war on terror on society, school-prison nexus, and critical geographies of education. She approaches these topics through a critical lens that connects academic research with community activism, particularly through collaboration with organizations like Vigilant Love to combat anti-Muslim racism in educational settings.

Nguyen's scholarly output reveals consistent thematic development across her career, moving from examining specific manifestations of security state expansion in educational settings to broader theoretical contributions about the geopolitical dimensions of schooling and the conceptual frameworks used to understand political violence. Her work demonstrates increasing engagement with abolitionist frameworks, particularly in her most recent publications.

• Soros Justice Fellow (2022)
• 2017 Globe Book Award, American Association of Geographers
• 2020 Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award honorable mention, Association of Humanist Sociology

Nguyen has supervised numerous graduate students and co-founded the Critical Geographies of Education specialty group of the American Association of Geographers. She has led significant initiatives including the College's Creating Cultural Competencies program from 2018-2022, which focused on countering anti-Muslim racism in schools and classrooms. Her teaching portfolio includes courses on the school-prison nexus, alternatives to incarceration, and qualitative writing.