Meet the Directors

Dr. Wallace is a Full Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and an Associate Director at the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses policing, racial/ethnic and disability-related disparities in policing, neighborhoods and crime, and issues related to incarceration, re-entry and health. Dr. Wallace’s work often focuses on novel, interdisciplinary quantitative approaches to long-standing questions in the field of criminology. She has taught research methods and statistics to undergraduates for over 20 years, and has extensive teaching experience in advanced statistics and data management for all levels of graduate students.  

Dr. Kay Varela is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) at Arizona State University. Dr. Varela received her PhD in Sociology from Texas A&M University in 2020. Her research focuses on Critical Race Theory; critical race criminology and punishment; community and school safety; juvenile justice; and qualitative methods. Specifically, her research takes an intersectional and critical race approach to the question, "Safe for whom?" and questions dominant narratives of safety ad security to highlight the safety experiences of marginalized communities. Dr. Varela is an expert in various forms of qualitative methods including ethnography, community engaged methods, discourse analysis, and intensive interviewing and has worked both with both interdisciplinary academic research teams and community organizations.