Kulig and Richards to Join School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty

Teresa Kulig, Ph.D.

Teresa Kulig earned her doctorate in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on a range of issues including the nature of human trafficking and child exploitation, testing theories of victimization, examining rape myth acceptance in India, evaluating public perceptions of sexual misconduct allegations against President Trump, and analyzing racial bias in laws named after crime victims. She has published in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, Victims & Offenders, and Journal of School Violence.

Kulig is currently working on a content analysis of human trafficking cases across the United States spanning from 2000 to 2016 using available newspapers from 22 of the largest U.S. cities to identify incidents of sex and labor trafficking. Once a case is detected, supplemental searches are conducted to provide more details regarding the event and outcome. The goal is to create a rich dataset that will illuminate the nature of the trafficking enterprise so as to develop evidence-based methods of prevention.

Kulig looks forward to being part of UNO's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “I feel fortunate to join the talented faculty at UNO and to be part of such a prestigious program,” Kulig said. She explained that she chose UNO due to the School’s strong commitment to victimology research.

Tara Richards, Ph.D.

Tara Richards earned her doctorate in criminology from the University of South Florida in 2011 and then completed post-doctoral research at USF’s Florida Mental Health Institute. She has been a faculty member at the University of Baltimore since 2013 where she taught courses on victimology, interpersonal violence, research methods, and statistics. She also developed a global education program for criminal justice students and leads courses focused on human trafficking and gender-based violence in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Spain.

Richards is an internationally recognized gender-based violence scholar, whose research and teaching focuses on sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and the role of gender in criminal justice system processes. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles which have been featured in top outlets such as Annals of Internal Medicine, Child Abuse and Neglect, Law and Human Behavior, and Crime & Delinquency. She is co-editor of the book, Sexual Victimization: Then and Now. Her research on domestic violence and sexual assault has been cited in news outlets such as BuzzFeed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Huffington Post, and on National Public Radio. In 2014, Richards received the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Women and Crime's New Scholar Award.

Richards currently serves as co-investigator on a Department of Justice funded evaluation of Abuser Intervention Programs in Maryland. The project is a researcher-practitioner collaboration which assesses recidivism of domestic violence offenders who do and do not participate in abuser intervention treatment. The project also aims to develop risk profiles for AIP participants regarding program attrition and reoffending.

Richards is thrilled to join the SCCJ faculty and looks forward to helping advance one of the department’s signature areas of excellence—victimology.