My research interests are in the areas of criminology, urban sociology, and the interconnection of these areas as represented by research on neighborhood correlates of crime. I am primarily a quantitative scholar, but I have co-authored theoretical research as well. Examples of topics explored in my research include crime in the context of college campuses and high schools, the importance of deportations on violent crime, the association of gentrification with violent crime and school-level academic performance, the importance of the selection of gentrification measurement strategies and whether the concentration of public transit was associated with changes in household income. My research has appeared in Crime & Delinquency, Deviant Behavior, Law & Society Review, Urban Studies, Journal of Urban Health, Youth & Society, Journal of Criminal Justice and Child and Adolescent Social Work. My research has also been highlighted by mainstream media including The Washington Post and CityLab by The Atlantic.I am currently working on research projects that examine the importance of community for post-disaster crime levels, the association of gentrification with multiple outcomes (gang and non-gang homicide; school level performance on standardized tests; neighborhood community; self-rated health), and the importance of religious affiliation for levels of violent and property crime in the United States.My teaching interests mirror my research interests. Since joining the faculty at Louisiana State University, I have taught undergraduate courses in Criminology, Sociology of Youth and Crime (Juvenile Delinquency) and The Community (Urban Sociology). At the graduate level, I have offered sections of Sociology of Crime and Deviance (Criminological Theory) and Ecology of Crime (Criminology with an emphasis on Urban Sociological topics). In addition to my classroom teaching experiences, I actively include graduate students in my own research projects in addition to working with them on their own research. I have also worked with several undergraduates on Senior Honors Theses projects. My efforts with these activities are guided by three interdependent goals: the sharing of knowledge, the encouragement of critical thinking skills and the importance of self-reflection and evaluation for research and individual learning.