Kerri Raissian, PhD

I am an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut.  My research focuses on understanding how policies, programs, and other interventions affect family safety and child well-being.  I am particularly interested in understanding how to reduce domestic violence, improve child well-being, and reduce gun related death and injury.

 

I am the Director of UConn’s Center for Advancing Research, Methods, and Scholarship (ARMS) in Gun Injury Prevention, the Co-Director of UConn’s Gun Violence Prevention – Research Interest Group (GVP-RIG), and the Co-Leader of the Connecticut Chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network.  In partnership with Cassandra Crifasi and Jennifer Dineen, I am editing a forthcoming volume of The ANNALS of The American Academy of Political and Social Science. This volume will provide the first multidisciplinary review of gun violence and prevention strategies in the US.

 

My work has been published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), Review of Economics of the Household, Child Abuse & Neglect, Child Maltreatment, Population Research and Policy Review, the European Journal of Ageing, among others.  My paper, “Hold Your Fire: Did the 1996 Federal Gun Control Act Expansion Reduce Domestic Homicides?” was awarded the 2016 Vernon Memorial Prize for the best paper in JPAM.  In 2018, “Heed Neglect: Disrupt Child Maltreatment” – a paper co-authored with Bullinger, Feely, and Schneider, all Doris Duke Fellows - was chosen as EndCAN’s best research paper in their national “Disruption Call”.

 

Prior to academia, I worked in the government and nonprofit sectors with adults and children experiencing domestic violence in the government and nonprofit sectors.  This experience and training continues to motivate the work I do today.  A current working paper with Aria Golestani and Emily Owens, seeks to evaluate the domestic violence courts I worked in, and was recently featured on Probable Causation.

 

I was a Doris Duke Fellow for the Promotion of Child Well-Being and completed my doctoral degree in Public Administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2013.  

 

I teach financial management for public organizations, research methods, child and family policy, and introduction to public policy. I have received teaching commendations for outstanding cumulative teaching evaluations from the University of Connecticut’s Provost’s Office on multiple occasions.

 

Thanks for visiting. I look forward to connecting with you soon!