Tara Opsal

Tara Opsal is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University, affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts and Women's Studies & Gender Research. Her work bridges academia and practice, focusing on criminal legal systems, sentencing policies, and environmental justice. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Research interests include criminology, gender-responsive corrections, prison environmental impacts, and foster care identity development. She emphasizes collaboration with non-profits and government agencies to translate research into actionable policies.

Her recent studies analyze trans client supervision in corrections, foster care identity, and environmental harms from prisons. She also explores how institutions like universities address hazing and improve mentorship for first-generation students.

Key contributions include scoping reviews of gender-responsive programming and grounded theories of foster care experiences. She advocates for marginalized voices in legal and environmental policy discussions.