Christopher J. Sullivan, PhD is E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Youth Crime and Violence and Chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). He was Co-Editor of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency from 2017 to 2023. Dr. Sullivan received his doctorate in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University in 2005. He has published numerous articles and book chapters focused mainly on juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, developmental and life-course criminology, and research and analytic methods. These have often appeared in top journals in the field of criminology (e.g., Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology) or related fields (e.g., American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Youth and Adolescence). He is author of Taking Juvenile Justice Seriously: Developmental Insights and System Challenges (Temple University Press, 2019), which was selected as an Outstanding Contribution by the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Developmental and Life Course Criminology in 2020. He is co-author of the 2021 book, Juvenile Risk and Needs Assessment: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice (Routledge). Since 2000, Dr. Sullivan has been data analyst or Principal Investigator (PI) on numerous federally or state-funded evaluations of diversion programs, treatment interventions, and juvenile drug courts. He has led research projects on developmental and life-course criminology and juvenile justice topics which were funded by the State of Ohio, National Institute of Justice, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He is currently PI on a National Institute of Justice-funded study of St. Louis’s Community Violence Intervention program and a foundation grant focused on youth legal financial obligations. Dr. Sullivan has been named a 250th Anniversary Fellow at Rutgers University and Fellow of the Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati for his research and has received award recognition for his mentoring and teaching of graduate students and academic service. He was elected as an Executive Counselor for the American Society of Criminology in 2022.
