Dr. Joshua Davis is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire studying cultural support for harsh criminal punishment. Specifically, Joshua's research investigates whether and how the intersection of racial identity and support for "religious" authoritarianism among (primarily white) Americans influence attitudes towards "criminals" and "troublemakers" in society. Further, Joshua's research highlights the role of racialized religious belief structures in the continued salience of racially-coded political strategies in the U.S. His published works can be found in such outlets as Social Problems, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and  the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Apart from his publication record, Joshua was awarded the Department of Sociology Outstanding Doctoral Student of the Year in 2018. He is also a co-founder of his department's Dialogues of Contemporary Sociology (DOCS) working-group for graduate student professional and scholarly development. He has presented his research at a number of national conferences, including a featured panel at the Annual Meeting for the American Sociological Association in 2018.

Joshua recently defended his dissertation entitled Punishing the Wicked: Complex Religion and Punitive Sentiment in the United States with guidance from his academic adviser, Dr. Samuel L. Perry, and committee members Drs. Trina Hope, Cyrus Schleifer, and H. Michael Crowson.