I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and graduated with my PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine. My work focuses on racial inequality in the criminal legal system, courts and sentencing, and punishment and social control. Specifically, I investigate questions of how racial inequality is created and maintained within the criminal legal system through ostensibly race-neutral practices, and how context matters for this inequality.