Erin O'Callaghan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on abolitionist feminisms, critical criminology, and qualitative methodologies, with emphases on sexual violence, workplace disclosures, and anti-carceral policies. She holds a PhD in Criminology from the University of Illinois-Chicago and teaches courses like Introduction to Criminology and Inequality in Criminal Sentencing. Education: PhD in Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago (2019) MA in Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago (2015) BS/BA in Psychology, University of Cincinnati (2013) Research Interests: Erin examines substance-involved sexual violence, workplace reporting dynamics, and survivor narratives. Her work critiques carceral systems and advocates for community-based solutions. Recent projects include a grant-funded study on workplace sexual violence responses via the Center for Institutional Courage. Publications Highlight Key Themes: Survivor-centered approaches to sexual assault disclosure Substance use and impairment during assaults Anti-harassment labor organizing in academia Policy critiques of Title IX Grants: Collaborates on institutional betrayal research funded by the Center for Institutional Courage. Advising focuses on graduate labor movements and survivor advocacy.
Olamilekan Shobayo is a dedicated lecturer at the School of Computing and Digital Technologies within the College of Business, Technology and Engineering. With over seven years of teaching experience, he specializes in data science, big data technologies, and healthcare analytics. He teaches modules including database management, big data analysis, and project management, equipping students with skills in R, Python, SQL, Hadoop, and Tableau. His students have secured roles as data analysts, DB administrators, and business analysts in the UK and internationally. His research focuses on AI applications in healthcare, particularly in emergency medicine, and includes developing a CNN model for classifying pediatric wrist fractures using infrared thermal imaging and a random forest algorithm for stroke prediction. He also explores clustering techniques in retail analytics and sentiment analysis for financial markets. Shobayo actively reviews for journals like Electronics , Algorithms , and Diagnostics , contributing to advancing AI research and clinical practice. Key Research Areas: Medical image analysis, stroke prediction, retail customer segmentation, and AI in emergency care. Teaching Roles: Courses include MSc Computing, Big Data Analytics, and Degree Apprenticeships. Shobayo’s work bridges AI development and clinical needs, with publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He also mentors through The Brilliant Club, designing STEM courses for young learners.
Dr. Benjamin Winter is a Researcher at the Department of Computer Science at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. He holds a PhD in Computer Science (2025) and a Master's in Media Informatics (2018) from the same institution. His research focuses on Reinforcement Learning, Imitation Learning, and Natural Language Processing, particularly in healthcare applications and transformer models. He contributed to the FashionBrain project analyzing European fashion through Big Data techniques and co-developed KIMERA and VisBERT tools for transformer analysis. Key research interests include autonomous driving, healthcare NLP, and domain adaptation of language models. His work spans from foundational research in transformer networks to applied projects in clinical decision-making and media bias analysis. Dr. Winter has published extensively on transformer architectures, including layer-wise analyses and visualization techniques. His work on reinforcement learning in competitive scenarios, such as StarCraft strategies, demonstrated early success in AI surpassing human experts.
Brittany Hood is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M International University, teaching in the online Master of Science in Criminal Justice program. She holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Indiana University (2020), an M.S. in Criminal Justice and Public Safety from IUPUI (2015), and a B.S. in Psychology from IUPUI (2013). Her research focuses on criminal justice, mental health interventions, and research methodology. Hood's extensive publication record examines mental health treatment in criminal justice contexts, including telemedicine applications during COVID-19, trauma-informed care for justice-involved individuals with serious mental illness, cultural attitudes toward treatment, and juvenile gang involvement patterns. Her work frequently addresses systemic challenges at the intersection of mental health services and criminal justice processes. She emphasizes critical thinking and writing skill development in her courses, which include research methods and statistics. Beyond research, Hood has personal interests in craft beer brewing.
Associate Professor Andrew Hemming is affiliated with the University of Southern Queensland's School of Law and Justice. He holds qualifications including a PhD from Charles Darwin University and multiple advanced degrees in law and policy. His research focuses on criminal law, evidence law, and legal reform, with notable contributions to topics like judicial proceedings, criminal legislation, and human rights. Recent work includes submissions to Queensland Law Reform Commission on non-fatal strangulation and nuclear energy policy. He supervises doctoral research on bail reforms, jury selection, and criminal jurisdiction. His publications span legal textbooks, peer-reviewed articles, and policy analyses, emphasizing practical legal education and systemic reform. Education: BA (Dublin, 1973), GCertEd (Hull, 1974), LLB(Hons) (CDU, 2011), MA (Dublin, 1975), MSc (Salford, 1976), MUrbanPlan (Melb, 1982), PhD (CDU, 2014). Research interests center on criminal justice, evidence admissibility, and legal system modernization. Key articles address bail reform, nuclear energy policy, and wrongful conviction cases like Kathleen Folbigg. His work often critiques current legal frameworks, advocating for reforms in criminal codes and procedural fairness. Supervision: Active in guiding doctoral research on criminal law topics, including bail processes and jury selection. Completed projects include reviews of similar fact evidence and Australia’s pandemic legal responses.
Monica L. Do is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. She directs the Language, Events, and Mind (LEM) Lab and specializes in psycholinguistics and experimental syntax. Her research explores how people translate conceptual representations of the world into linguistic forms, focusing on decision-making in language production and cross-linguistic variation. Dr. Do holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California (2018) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania (2018–2019). Her work employs eye-tracking and behavioral methods to study topics like sentence formulation, word order regularization, and motion event encoding. Key themes include the interplay between syntax and semantics, cognitive factors influencing language production, and the role of pragmatics in shaping linguistic output. She investigates these processes across diverse languages, emphasizing the relationship between thought and expression. Dr. Do’s research has been published in journals like Cognition and Language, Cognition, & Neuroscience , and she regularly contributes to conferences such as the Cognitive Science Society. Her lab focuses on experimental approaches to understanding how language reflects and interacts with human cognition.
Laura Peters is an Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen. She specializes in Dutch criminal law and criminal procedure, human rights (ECHR), comparative criminal law, and subversive crime. Her research primarily focuses on studying criminal law and criminal procedure in the Netherlands and abroad, with particular interest in increasing the effectiveness of criminal proceedings, especially regarding subversive crime. Dr. Peters obtained her law degree (cum laude) from Radboud University Nijmegen in 2005, with a specialization in Criminal Law and Comparative Criminal Law. During her studies, she spent a year at Libera Università degli Studi Sociali Guido Carlo in Rome (2002-2003, cum laude) through the European Union's Socrates program and completed the Sommerhochschule at the University of Vienna in 2004 (cum laude). She earned her PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen in 2012 with research on negotiated justice in criminal cases across Italy, Germany, and France. Dr. Peters' research interests center on comparative criminal justice systems, with particular focus on how the Netherlands can learn from Italy's approach to fighting organized crime, especially the Mafia. She has conducted extensive research on Italian anti-Mafia legislation and how it could be adapted to better combat organized crime in the Netherlands. Her work also explores innovations in criminal procedure, including negotiated justice, plea bargaining, and the potential use of AI in criminal justice processes. She is particularly interested in methods to increase the effectiveness of criminal proceedings while maintaining respect for human rights and fundamental principles of justice. Dr. Peters' publications reveal a consistent trajectory examining comparative criminal justice systems, with a growing focus on Italian approaches to organized crime. Her recent work shows increasing emphasis on practical applications of foreign legal concepts to the Dutch context, particularly regarding Mafia crime and witness testimony. She has also expanded into technology applications in criminal justice, reflecting broader trends in legal scholarship. Her scientific contributions have been recognized with several awards, including: Ben Feringa Impact Award runner up (2023) Docent van het Jaar 2022 (Teacher of the Year 2022) Knight in the Order of the Star of Italy (2025) Dr. Peters actively advises governmental bodies and has worked with the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Safety on developing legal innovations to more effectively combat serious organized crime. She has conducted numerous interviews with foreign judges, prosecutors, and lawyers from Germany, France, and Italy on criminal procedure topics. Her teaching spans both Dutch and international bachelor's and master's programs, and she has also taught master's courses to Italian law students at the University of Bologna. Dr. Peters is actively involved in research projects examining the role of law in shaping approaches to organized crime, particularly through comparative analysis of international legal systems. She is one of the initiators of the AIWitness project, exploring how AI can support the taking of witness statements in criminal cases through a partnership between the University of Groningen, Capgemini, and ScottyAI, and continues to explore how innovations from foreign penal systems can improve the Dutch criminal justice system.
Seung Kyung Kim is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at University of Utah, researching how linguistic and paralinguistic cues influence speech perception and comprehension. Research examines: Emotional prosody effects on word recognition Cross-linguistic sentence processing Eye-tracking methodologies for language studies Publications demonstrate how affective vocal qualities modulate lexical access and how Korean case markers are processed by native and L2 speakers. Teaching includes graduate seminars in psycholinguistics and experimental phonetics.
Andrea E. Martin, PhD, is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics specializing in the neural mechanisms of language processing. Her work focuses on how the brain converts perceptual features into hierarchical linguistic representations across multiple timescales. Her research interests center on the intersection of language, cognition, and neural computation. Dr. Martin investigates how hierarchical relationships between words, phrases, and sentences are processed in the brain, with particular attention to oscillatory patterns that resemble human cortical responses to linguistic stimuli. She explores how the brain repurposes neurobiological subroutines to handle the computational demands of language. Dr. Martin's work demonstrates that symbolic-connectionist models of analogy can oscillate while processing sentences, suggesting a formal alignment between representational structure building and cortical oscillations. This research has significant implications for understanding the first principles of linguistic computation in the human brain. Her methodology combines computational modeling with neuroscience approaches to bridge linguistic theory and cortical computation, examining how time can be used to encode hierarchy across layered networks while preserving compositionality.
Jonas Obleser is a Professor researching auditory neuroscience, focusing on how neural oscillations facilitate speech comprehension. His work examines phase-synchronization mechanisms that align neural excitability with linguistic information. Core research themes: Delta-band phase synchronization in sentence interpretation Alignment of neural excitability with linguistic informativeness Trade-off between slow oscillatory entrainment and alpha/beta modulation Information-theoretic approaches to neural speech processing His studies demonstrate that phase synchronization optimizes information extraction capacities during speech processing rather than merely tracking acoustic rhythms.
Dr. John Taggart is a Lecturer in Law at Queen's University Belfast, affiliated with the School of Law and the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice (ICCJ). He holds a first-class honours degree in Law from Queen's, an LLM (Distinction) from City University London, and a PhD in Law from the London School of Economics (LSE). His research focuses on criminal process, criminal justice, and socio-legal approaches to criminal law, particularly addressing vulnerable individuals within the justice system. Education: Bachelor of Law (First Class Honours), Queen's University Belfast Certificate in Professional Legal Practice, Institute of Professional Legal Studies (QUB) LLM (Distinction), City University London PhD in Law, London School of Economics (LSE) Roles: Lecturer in Criminal Law and Evidence Careers and Employability Officer, School of Law Theme Lead for 'Vulnerable Accused' (British Society of Criminology) His research explores special measures in criminal courts, intermediary roles for vulnerable court users, and effective participation in police custody. Collaborations include the Department of Justice (Northern Ireland), Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and Public Prosecution Service (PPS). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and speaks Spanish at B2 level. Awards include the Academic Consultant role (2023), AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (2025), and QUB Strategic Research Equipment Fund (2025). His work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals focused on justice and equity.
Murat Haner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University (ASU), affiliated with the Watts College of Public Service & Community Solutions. His research focuses on terrorism and political violence, exploring their societal impacts, radicalization processes, and public policy responses. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Middle East as a Fulbright fellow and authored books and peer-reviewed articles in criminology and terrorism studies. Murat Haner holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati (2016), an M.A. in Political Science (2014), an M.S. in Criminal Justice (2010), and a B.A. in Security Studies from the School of Security Sciences in Ankara (2006). His research interests emphasize terrorism’s societal consequences, public fear dynamics, victimology, counterterrorism strategies, and Middle Eastern political contexts involving groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the PKK. He also examines intersections between terrorism and broader issues like gun control, human rights, and international security. Haner’s academic contributions include analyzing pandemic-related social behaviors, exploring racialized attitudes toward political violence, and investigating the psychological effects of perceived discrimination on marginalized communities. His work combines experimental methodologies with policy analysis to address pressing security challenges. In teaching, he instructs courses such as Domestic Terrorism, International Terrorism, and Applied Data Analysis in Criminology. His courses reflect his expertise in terrorism studies and empirical research methods. Murat Haner’s research has been supported by the US Department of State through the Fulbright fellowship, enabling his fieldwork across the Middle East. Despite no explicitly listed grants or awards, his scholarly output demonstrates sustained engagement with global security issues and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Liina Pylkkänen is a Professor of Linguistics and Psychology at New York University and directs the NYU Neurolinguistics Lab. Her research investigates the neural mechanisms underlying language comprehension, focusing on how syntax and semantics interact in the absence of temporal input sequencing. She employs magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study rapid parallel visual presentation (RPVP) of sentences, revealing neural activity patterns in left fronto-temporal cortex (~130ms post-onset) for grammatical sentences versus word lists. Her work addresses core questions about the brain's inherent processing architecture for language, disentangling modality-specific effects from universal linguistic computations. Courses taught include Neural Bases of Language (undergraduate) and Neurolinguistics (graduate). Key research themes include the syntax-semantics interface, lexical access, and morphological decomposition. Her lab explores spatiotemporal organization of linguistic computations using cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques.
Panagiotis Kasnesis is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, University of West Attica. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from NTUA, alongside degrees in Chemical Engineering and Techno-Economic Systems. His research focuses on machine/deep learning, Semantic Web technologies, multiagent systems, and IoT, with over 20 publications in top journals and conferences. He is an NVIDIA DLI-certified instructor in Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision. Education: Ph.D. (Computer Science, NTUA), Diploma in Chemical Engineering (NTUA), M.Sc. in Techno-Economic Systems (NTUA) Research interests span health informatics, wearable devices, and sensor fusion, with projects in biomedical signal analysis and IoT applications. His work includes developing radar-based systems for health monitoring and AR/VR solutions for rehabilitation. He actively participates in EU-funded projects and promotes trustworthiness in social media through initiatives like EUNOMIA. Recent publications emphasize health tech innovations, such as stress detection via PPG signals, UWB radar-based human detection, and multimodal fusion for 3D pose estimation. His contributions also address cultural heritage preservation through VR and crowdsourcing. Grants and collaborations involve European R&D projects in IoT security, emergency response systems, and decentralized social media frameworks. He leads efforts in embodied AR for medical applications and energy-efficient neural networks.
Rochelle Stevenson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Thompson Rivers University (TRU). A criminologist with a PhD from the University of Windsor, she specializes in the intersection of domestic violence and animal cruelty. Her work focuses on understanding how animal abuse functions as a form of power and control in intimate partner violence, advocating for policy changes to protect both victims and their pets. Education includes a PhD in Sociology (2018, University of Windsor), MA in Criminology (2012, University of Ottawa), and BA (Hons) in Criminology (2009, Simon Fraser University). She is a core member of the Animal and Interpersonal Abuse Research Group, which has conducted groundbreaking studies on the link between pet abuse and domestic violence. Research highlights include demonstrating that 54% of abused women delay leaving violent relationships due to pet safety concerns. Her advocacy drives development of Safe Pet programs for domestic violence shelters, fostering collaboration between human and animal welfare sectors. Recent work includes a national census of domestic violence shelters' pet-related policies, funded by a major grant. Stevenson also explores perpetrators' perspectives through interviews with incarcerated men, aiming to understand motivations behind abuse. She emphasizes the need for trauma-informed practices among animal protection workers and seeks to create inclusive support systems for all victims of violence.
