I am a a legally trained computational social scientist studying how complex data can inform policy, with particular emphasis on the nexus of fear, criminal data, and the law. My research is interdisciplinary and can be found across a myriad of law review journals, social science journals, general science outlets, and film essay anthologies.
Download a copy of my curriculum vita here.
Criminology & Criminal Law
My crime and criminal law research spans several categories and topics. Recently, I have focused extensively on the racial implications of the felony murder rule. This emphasis spans my scholarship, my computational law consulting, and has culminated in 2 amicus briefs. My first article in this space is published in the peer reviewed forum of the Mississippi Law Review and a second is forthcoming with the Northwestern Law Review.
A second component of my criminal law work focuses on felony case processing. After two studies focused on case processing in Illinois’ Cook County Courts, I have won a fellowship with the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System to study case processing at the national level.
A third element of my crime-focused research focuses on opioid overdose and micropolitans. Centering on Sandusky Ohio, a town simultaneously like and unlike any other, I work with my colleague Andrew Burns to understand the terrain of drug overdose and its effects on the community.
RECENT PAPERS [Open Access]
CONSULTING
Boston University Anti-Racist Research Center, Felony Murder Rule Project
Racial Justice Act Consulting
Brian McComas LLC, Mark Iverson LLC, and others
Objects of Law
I have a new line of regulatory work focused on invasive species and environmental law. In this work, I explore my theory of the objectification of law (i.e. closely associating a law with a single object even if the legal precedent is more broad) and regulating the truth.
This work began with my paper “If I See a Burmese Python, I’m Gonna Kill that Shit”: How Changing the Object of the Law Affects Support for Legal Regulation where I first began my investigation of objects as tri-partite: with legal, social, and tangible dimensions. The theoretical innovation in this paper was an extension of objects theory to consider how attachment to one dimension of a multi-dimensional object can vary support for legal regulation.
Fear the Law: Codifying Fear Through the Objectification of the Law advances my theory of objectification in three key ways: 1) by considering fear as an accelerant for objectification, 2) by interrogating the realness of objects, and 3) advancing the Fear Principle as an analytic tool to help diagnose the objectification of fear. Using both digital survey experiments and case study analysis I find that an emotional fear reaction to the social dimension of an object, coupled with celerity, spread, and institutional legitimation leads to the objectification of fear – even when the fear object is not real.
Note: In some of this work, I study cats. There is (unbelievably) another person named Kat Albrecht who has published articles on missing cat detection. That is not me.
“If I See A Burmese Python, I’m Gonna Kill That Shit,” forthcoming at UC Irvine Law Review [read more]
Fear the Law: Codifying Fear Through the Objectifican of the Law [read more]
What is a Fish? (Legally and Literally) [in-progress]
with Kaitlyn Filip
Data Law
My work on court records takes two forms: 1) policy-oriented law writing about the tension between criminal record transparency and potential harm, and 2) work with SCALES OKN.
The SCALES – OKN (Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation EventS Open Knowledge Network) team is composed of computer and data scientists, legal scholars, journalists and policy experts, to develop a suite of tools to enable access to court records and analytics.
Our goal over the next three years is to build an AI powered data platform that makes the details of the federal judiciary and insights into how it works available and accessible to every single person.
Public Records Aren’t Public: Systemic Barriers to Measuring Court Functioning [open access]
with Kaitlyn Filip
Sign up for Satyrn [here]
Free beta tool for court analysis
Fear & Film
My main theoretical interest is in fear, both fictional and factual. This interest has led to significant in-progress work developing an interdisciplinary social science of fear and in analyzing various elements of fear in film. As the projects are released, I will update them here.
My empirical fear work focuses on a question of measurement: how do we measure fear and how are we sure it’s fear (rather than risk assessment or worry) that we are measuring? I study these questions with dynamic digital survey experiments designed to change what we know AND how we know it.
My work in the filmic space focuses on creature features, practical special effects, and the creation of fear. Several of my peer-reviewed essays are forthcoming in edited volumes at University Presses. Additionally, I am currently working on first book project along with my co-author Kaitlyn Filip titled, “Horror Law.” Horror Law brings together my legal work and my film/fear work in one volume.
Accepted Papers [at the publisher!]
Practical Magic: The Role of Practical Special Effects in Creating Fear
A Critical Companion to Wes Craven
Genre Tropes and Cinematic Risk-taking in the Conjuring Universe
Critical Conversations in Horror Studies
Truths, Lies, & Suspiciously Large Snakes
Teaching the Creature Feature
Film projects and creative work
My film work naturally transitioned to also writing reviews of horror film, horror anthologies and monographs, and horror games. These are catalogued on my horror reviews page.
