Erin Kearns
- Director of Law Enforcement Partnerships
- NCITE
- Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Additional Information
Bio
Erin M. Kearns, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the director of law enforcement partnerships at NCITE.
She is a fellow at the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) and a former fellow at the Global Studies Institute at Georgia State University. Kearns earned her Ph.D. from the School of Public Affairs at American University and spent 4 years as faculty at the University of Alabama prior to joining UNO.
Kearns has 20 years of experience in national security, first as a consultant for a Kroll subsidiary and later as an applied researcher collaborating with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners. Blending quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods, her research examines the relationships among the public, law enforcement, media, and groups that use terrorism. She is the PI or co-PI of over $6.5 million in externally funded research projects in close collaboration with partners across the private sector, local and federal law enforcement, and the intelligence community.
Her research is published in top journals across criminology and criminal justice, terrorism and security studies, psychology, political science, and communications including Communication Research, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Terrorism & Political Violence. Her work has been featured on numerous media outlets including CNN, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Independent, NPR, and the Washington Post.
Kearns also adopts rescue American Pit Bull Terrier mixes and names them after characters from The Wire – the best show ever created, and the subject of a UNO Honor’s course she recently developed and taught.
Research Interests
Terrorism and targeted violence prevention, public perceptions of and responses to violence, law enforcement and security, media depictions of terrorism and counterterrorismEducation
B.A., Political Science & Psychology, Miami University
M.A., Forensic Psychology, CUNY John Jay University of Criminal Justice
Ph.D., Criminology & Public Policy, American University
Selected Publications
Tortured Logic: Why Some Americans Support the Use of Torture in Counterterrorism. Columbia University Press, 2020.
The Theorizing of Terrorism within Criminology. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 2023. Biased Coverage of Bias Crime: Examining Differences in Media Coverage of Hate Crimes and Terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2023.
When to Take Credit for Terrorism?: A Cross-National Examination of Claims and Attributions. Terrorism & Political Violence, 2021.
How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks as ‘Terrorism’ or ‘Mental Illness'. Communication Research, 2021.
Additional Information
Bio
Erin M. Kearns, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the director of law enforcement partnerships at NCITE.
She is a fellow at the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) and a former fellow at the Global Studies Institute at Georgia State University. Kearns earned her Ph.D. from the School of Public Affairs at American University and spent 4 years as faculty at the University of Alabama prior to joining UNO.
Kearns has 20 years of experience in national security, first as a consultant for a Kroll subsidiary and later as an applied researcher collaborating with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners. Blending quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods, her research examines the relationships among the public, law enforcement, media, and groups that use terrorism. She is the PI or co-PI of over $6.5 million in externally funded research projects in close collaboration with partners across the private sector, local and federal law enforcement, and the intelligence community.
Her research is published in top journals across criminology and criminal justice, terrorism and security studies, psychology, political science, and communications including Communication Research, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Terrorism & Political Violence. Her work has been featured on numerous media outlets including CNN, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Independent, NPR, and the Washington Post.
Kearns also adopts rescue American Pit Bull Terrier mixes and names them after characters from The Wire – the best show ever created, and the subject of a UNO Honor’s course she recently developed and taught.
Research Interests
Terrorism and targeted violence prevention, public perceptions of and responses to violence, law enforcement and security, media depictions of terrorism and counterterrorismEducation
B.A., Political Science & Psychology, Miami University
M.A., Forensic Psychology, CUNY John Jay University of Criminal Justice
Ph.D., Criminology & Public Policy, American University
Selected Publications
Tortured Logic: Why Some Americans Support the Use of Torture in Counterterrorism. Columbia University Press, 2020.
The Theorizing of Terrorism within Criminology. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 2023. Biased Coverage of Bias Crime: Examining Differences in Media Coverage of Hate Crimes and Terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2023.
When to Take Credit for Terrorism?: A Cross-National Examination of Claims and Attributions. Terrorism & Political Violence, 2021.
How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks as ‘Terrorism’ or ‘Mental Illness'. Communication Research, 2021.