Criminal Justice opens doors to in-demand careers
Graduates will be equipped for careers in local, state, or federal government; law enforcement; forensics; crime lab/crime scene analysts; correctional counseling/correctional treatment; victim advocacy; intelligence; and public safety analytics. Criminal Justice also prepares students for graduate education, law school, and the civil service exam.
The Criminal Justice (B.S.) program prepares you to enter the field through flexible academic tracks that allow for a customizable educational experience based on your interests. Take foundational coursework in Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Psychology, and choose an area of specialization in forensics, mental health, or criminal law and critical legal study. Develop interdisciplinary research skills to prepare for the senior capstone and practical skills to enter internships and the workplace.
A B.S. in Criminal Justice prepares you for graduate study or to enter the broad field of criminal justice with a deeper understanding of the social, political, psychological environments in which you may serve.
Program Benefits
- Individualized program plans prepare students to enter criminal justice and related fields or to continue on for graduate education
- Interdisciplinary faculty committed to student success
- Flexible, transfer friendly program welcomes returning adult learners
- Collaborative research experiences and senior capstone
- External partnerships for internships and immersion experiences
- Generous free electives enable students to pursue applied training in law enforcement (police academy)
Program Learning Outcomes
- Graduates will be well-trained criminal justice professionals with a strong liberal arts background, prepared with a deeper understanding of their political, psychological, and social environments.
- Graduates will be able to critically apply core criminology and criminal justice principles to situations related to crime, criminal justice, and related areas of practice.
- Students in this program will understand the research methodology used in the study of criminal justice and the application of research to real-world environments.
Program Directors
Email: jwendlan@daemen.edu
Office Location: DS 139
Phone Number: 716.839.8284
Dr. Wendland received his Bachelor’s degree from Carroll College (now Carroll University) in Waukesha, WI in 2008. He went on to earn his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
His current research focuses on American political behavior - specifically the presidential nominating process, representation, and electoral reform. He is the author of Campaigns That Matter, a book that examines the role of candidate visits in presidential nominating contests and a number of articles that have appeared in The Journal of Political Marketing, Electoral Studies, Social Science Quarterly, The Forum, and Dialogue. He is also a contributor to the Political Science blog 3Streams, which focuses on the convergence of politics, policy, and ideas by highlighting the practical application of political science research. His forthcoming book The Constant Two Plan focuses on reforming the Electoral College in a way to better align the popular and electoral votes.
Dr. Wendland’s teaching Interests include: Elections and Voting Behavior, Politics and Pop Culture, Political Communication, Political Psychology, Public Opinion, Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Politics & the Media.
Read a brief article by Dr. Wendland in the H&P Blog
Office: Curtis Hall 202
Phone: 716-839-8257
Email: demer@daemen.edu
Dr. Denise Emer is Professor in the Daemen University Psychological Sciences Department and current department chairperson. Dr. Emer holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Emer began her graduate study in the area of developmental and cognitive psychology but became fascinated with clinical/forensic areas of the field in her final year of graduate school and was fortunate to access mentors who were willing to provide the training she needed to reorient her study and reinvent herself professionally. During her final graduate year, and first 3 years of tenure-track teaching at St. Bonaventure University, Dr. Emer completed an externship at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center working with severe and persistent mentally ill clients. She also received training in forensic psychology under the mentorship of Dr. Joseph Davis, a California-based forensic psychologist who teaches at California State University and has been a leader in the field for over 25 years.
Dr. Emer’s research has been eclectic, focusing on various areas of clinical, forensic, and health psychology, including, the efficacy of group therapy approaches for people with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, the relationship between perfectionism and performance, Obsessive Relational Intrusion and Stalking behaviors in college populations, and jealousy and infidelity in college students. Dr. Emer has also previously conducted research on factors that impact potential jurors’ decisions about insanity pleas and related mental health factors that mitigate criminal responsibility. More recently, Dr. Emer’s research focus has been on so-called ‘dark personality’ traits and how they operate in work environments, relationships and social experiences, and political decision-making.
Dr. Emer is enthusiastic about teaching undergraduates about her discipline and helping them to understand how the science of psychology can contribute to a better life for everyone regardless of an individual’s college major, interests, or career aspirations. Dr. Emer regularly teaches courses in Forensic Psychology, Health Psychology, and the Psychology of Mental Illness (a.k.a., “Abnormal Psychology”), as well as courses in the required undergraduate research sequence for psychology majors. Dr. Emer also coordinates field placements for senior students completing their practicum experiences.
Dr. Emer has had the pleasure of mentoring several undergraduate student research projects, both as part of the required thesis for psychology majors at Daemen University, and as Independent Study endeavors. Several of these projects have been submitted for publication and/or presentation at national research conferences.
In her spare time, Dr. Emer is an avid musician, whose passion is singing blues, funk, soul, jazz, alt-and classic rock. She also enjoys dancing (esp. Latin, Hip Hop, and Swing), fitness training, and movies. In her spare time, Dr. Emer spends time with her 3 kids (now all college students), Nick, Sam, and Zoe along with her dog Sylas, and her many rescued cats.
Dr. Emer's Courses
- PSY 223, Forensic Psychology
- PSY 229, Health Psychology
- PSY 408, Psychology of Mental Illness
- PSY 353, Research Methods in Psychology
- PSY 354, Topics in Research, Health and Personality Psychology
- PSY 335, Junior Seminar in Psychology (Crimes That Make You Go Hmmm)
- PSY 444 Senior Thesis in Psychology
Current Research Projects
This year I will be continuing research in 3 topic areas of interest: Obsessive Relational Intrusion (a precursor to stalking that involves failure to respect personal boundaries in relationships), Jealousy and Infidelity in Romantic Relationships (specifically, gender differences and how those differences interact with the type of infidelity perpetrated and one ability to take the perspective of one’s partner), and interventions for test anxiety in college students.
If you are interested in registering for an Independent Study with regard to any of the above research projects please review the following requirements before submitting an application:
Getting involved with research as an undergraduate is a great way to learn more about psychology and get hands-on experience. The skills you learn doing research will assist you in the workplace and/or graduate school. Undergraduate research assistants will work closely with me and possibly other students on a research project. Your involvement may include the collection of data from human subjects, data entry and scoring, preparation of materials, completing literature searches, and statistical analysis (if you have experience with the statistical software and type of analyses being conducted).
Faculty
Email: lparshal@daemen.edu
Office Location: DS 139
Phone Number: 716-839-8303
Dr. Parshall completed her undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where she majored in Political Science. She received an MA and a Ph.D. in Political Science (2001) from the University at Buffalo (SUNY), specializing in American Politics, Public Law and Judicial Politics, and Public Policy. Dr. Parshall is the author and co-author of several law review articles relating to the constitutional jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (the subject of her doctoral dissertation) and reform of the presidential nominating system.
Dr. Parshall is the Secretary of the New York State Political Science Association (2013-2014), and Chair of the State and Local Politics Section (2009-2014). She was the recipient of a 2012 Hackman Research Residency Award from the New York State Archives Partnership Trust and is currently working on a related manuscript, In Local Hands: Village Government Incorporation and Dissolution in New York State. Dr. Parshall is also a Key Votes Advisor (NY) for Project Vote Smart (2013).
Dr. Parshall is a member of the Northeastern Association of Pre Law Advisors (NAPLA) and serves as a campus Pre Law Advisor.
Dr. Parshall was awarded a grant in the amount of $8,000 from the Howard J. Samuels State and City Policy Center. Her proposal was reviewed and ranked as worthy of funding by a panel representing research scholars, policy practitioners, and the Samuels estate.
Research and Teaching Areas
American Politics: (Public Law & Judicial Politics, State and Local Politics, Election Law, Criminal Procedure, Judicial Process, Presidency and Institutions); Public Policy: (Federalism, Intergovernmental Relations)
Office: Curtis Hall 201
Phone: 716-839-8256
Email: jhanna@daemen.edu
I am a psycholinguist with a background in cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. After my graduate training, I was a postdoctoral fellow at SUNY Stony Brook, working on ways to study comprehension during conversational interaction using head-mounted eye tracking technology. During my career, I have set up two eye tracking laboratories, one for use in experiments that use computer-based displays and one for use in experiments where participants are in face-to-face, conversational settings.
Courses Taught
- • PSY 103 – Introduction to Psychological Science
- • PSY 215 – Cognitive Psychology
- • PSY 216 – Behavior Modification
- • PSY 217 – Sensation and Perception
- • PSY 333 – Statistics for Psychological and Social Sciences
- • PSY 353 – Research Methods in Psychological Science
- • PSY 335 – Junior Seminar in Psychological Science (Psycholinguistics)
- • PSY 354 – Advanced Research Methods in Psychological Science
- • PSY 391 – Psychology and Culture
- • PSY 444 – Senior Thesis in Psychological Sciences
The course I most love to teach is Introduction to Psychological Science; I find it particularly rewarding to introduce students to the science of psychology, whether they will end up a major or not, and to explore with them the theories and data that speak to how and why we think and behave the way we do.
My research focuses on the sources of information that contribute to moment-by-moment language comprehension, including linguistic factors (such as syntax and semantics), as well as factors that come from the context of being involved in a conversation(such as the common ground between interlocutors, their spatial perspectives, their eye gaze, or even their gestures). I have also conducted eyetracking reading experiments that looked at how prior discourse context affects within-sentence ambiguity resolution.
Educational Background
- Bachelor of Arts, Vassar College, 1991 (Cognitive Science)
- Master of Arts, University Rochester, 1999 (Brain and Cognitive Sciences)
- Doctor of Philosophy, University Rochester, 2001 (Brain and Cognitive Sciences)
- NIH National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow, SUNY Stony Brook, 2001-2004
Selected Articles and Presentations
- Hanna, J.E., Brennan, S.E., & *Savietta, K.J. (2020). Eye gaze and head orientation cues in face-to-face referential communication. Discourse Processes, 57(3), 203-223.
- Hanna. J.E., Poepsel, D.L., & Lupien, S.P. (November, 2019). Evaluation of SPSS training within a Psychological Sciences statistics course versus an introductory research methods course. Poster presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Conference for Teachers of Psychology. Manchester, NH.
- Brennan, S.E., & Hanna, J.E. (2017). Psycholinguistic approaches: Meaning and understanding. In E. Weigand (Ed.), Language and Dialogue: A Handbook of Key Issues in the Field (pp. 93-108). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Brown-Schmidt, S. & Hanna, J.E. (2011).Talking in another person's shoes: Incremental perspective-taking in language processing. Dialog and Discourse, 2, 11-33.
- Brennan, S.E. & Hanna, J.E. (2009).Partner-specific adaptation in dialogue. Topics in Cognitive Science(Special Issue on Joint Action), 1, 274-291.
- Hanna, J.E. & Brennan, S.E. (2007). Speakers' eye gaze disambiguates referring expressions early during face-to-face conversation.Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 596-616.
- Hanna, J.E. & Tanenhaus, M.K. (2004). Pragmatic effects on reference resolution in a collaborative task: evidence from eye movements. Cognitive Science, 28, 105-115.
- Hanna, J.E., Tanenhaus, M.K., & Trueswell, J.C. (2003). The effects of common ground and perspective on domains of referential interpretation. Journal Of Memory and Language, 49, 43-61.
Funding
- NSF HCC-Small:Establishing and breaking conceptual pacts with dialog partners. Co-PI on collaborative grant with D. Byron (joint review by Information and Intelligent Systems/Human Centered Computing and Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences/Perception, Action, and Cognition). 10/2007-9/2010; No cost extension through 9/2011; NSF approved extensions through 3/2013; Supplement Awarded to J.E. Hanna 6/2012.
- NIH National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow, SUNY Stony Brook, 2001-2004. Title: The use of perspective during referential communication. Sponsor: Dr. Susan E.Brennan.
Office: Curtis Hall 204
Phone: 716-839-7277
Email: kkhan@daemen.edu
I am a behavioral neuroscientist with training in neuropsychopharmacology. I earned my Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from the University of Minnesota at Rochester, where I began working with the zebrafish animal model. From there I continued working with zebrafish and earned my M.A. and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, with an emphasis in Brain and Behavioral Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. There, my focus was on studying the environmental and pharmacological influences on stress-related behavior in zebrafish. Before coming to Daemen University, I completed my postdoctoral training in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, working with mouse models to study neurodegenerative diseases.
My primary research interests are in studying the individual differences in the susceptibility or resiliency to affective (e.g., depressive) disorders. I use a zebrafish animal model to examine the neurobiological basis of stress behaviors via behavior analysis and physiological assays. The most rewarding thing about research for me, is the ability to develop unique questions and carry out experiments to answer previously unanswered questions. I really enjoy mentoring young scholars through research and teaching them tools which they can use to develop & answer their own research questions.
I teach several courses in psychology, including Introduction to Psychological Sciences, Research Methods courses, Biological Bases of Behavior, and Drugs & Behavior. My instruction style is interactive, and I always strive to provide multiple viewpoints to a particular topic or subject matter.
Selected Publications
- Khan, K. M., Balasubramanian, N., Gaudencio, G., Wang, R., Selvakumar, G. P., Kolling, L., Pierson, S., Tadinada, S. M., Abel, T., Hefti, M. & Marcinkiewcz, C. A. (2023). Human tau-overexpressing mice recapitulate brainstem involvement and neuropsychiatric features of early Alzheimer’s disease. Acta neuropathologica communications, 11(1), 57.
- Khan, K. M., Bierlein-De La Rosa, G., Biggerstaff, N., Pushpavapathi, S. G., Mason, S., Dailey, M., Marcinkiewcz, C. A. (2023). Adolescent ethanol drinking promotes hyperalgesia, neuroinflammation and serotonergic deficits in mice that persist into adulthood. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 107, 419-431.
- Khan, K. M., Collier, A. D., Meshalkina, D. A., Kysil, E. V., Khatsko, S. L., Kolesnikova, T., Morzherin, Y. Y., Warnick, J. E., Kalueff, A. V., Echevarria, D. J. (2017). Zebrafish models in neuropsychopharmacology and CNS drug discovery. British Journal of Pharmacology, 174, 1925-1944.
- Khan, K. M., Echevarria, D. J. (2017). Feeling Fishy: Trait Differences in Zebrafish (Danio rerio). In J. Vonk & A. Weiss (Eds.), Personality in Non-human Animals (pp. 111-127). New York, NY: Springer.
Office: Curtis Hall 205
Phone: 716-566-7854
Email: slupien@daemen.edu
I am a social psychologist with areas of expertise in the psychology of the self, self-esteem and its various subcomponents, and factors that affect resilience vs. vulnerability. I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Saint Michael’s College and my Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Much of my graduate research examined the dark side of high self-esteem, specifically fragile high self-esteem, which has been associated with a number of defensive responses. My research examined the psychological experience of self-doubt that is easily activated during situations particularly relevant for validating fragile self-views, which may be responsible for the defensiveness seen among those with fragile high self-esteem. Currently, I am focusing my research on exploring the positive and negative effects of social media on the self as well as how consuming certain types of media and identifying with media characters or celebrities affects social relationships and personal well-being. I also look forward to the opportunity to expand upon my research, especially by collaborating with and incorporating the ideas of undergraduate mentees.
In addition to my research, I am passionate about teaching Psychology. It is a blessing to be able to interact with students and share my enjoyment of such a fascinating field of study. In my approach to teaching, I aim to inspire passion and excitement for learning as well as to foster mastery and critical thinking. The close-knit learning environment at Daemen promotes a personalized student-teacher relationship, which helps to facilitate these goals and allows students to become well-rounded members of the community, capable of lifelong learning.
Outside of the classroom, I like spending time outdoors and being active, as well as enjoying the company of friends and family.
Courses Taught
- PSY 103 – Introduction to Psychological Science
- PSY 210 – Social Psychology
- PSY 301 – Psychology of Human Sexuality and Sexual Health
- PSY 335 – Junior Seminar in Psychology (Self and Self-Esteem)
- PSY 353 – Research Methods in Psychology
- PSY 354 – Advanced Research Methods in Psychology
- PSY 391 – Psychology and Culture
- PSY 444 – Senior Thesis in Psychology
Selected Publications
- Nestorowich, D. L., Lupien, S. P., & Madaus Knapp, V. (2022). Perceptions of behaviors associated with ASD in others: Knowledge of the diagnosis increases empathy and improves perceptions of warmth and competence. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology, and Education, 12,1594-1606.
- Kershaw, M. E., Lupien, S. P., & Scheid, J. L. (2021). Impact of web-based meeting platform usage on overall well-being among higher education employees. European Journal of Investigation in Health Psychology and Education, 11, 372-381.
- Scheid, J. L., & Lupien, S. P. (2021). Fitness watches and nutrition apps: Behavioral benefits and emerging concerns. ACSM’s Health and Fitness Journal, 25, 21-25.
- Scheid, J. L., Lupien, S. P., Ford, G. S., & West, S. L. (2020). Physiological and psychological impact of face mask usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(18), 6655.
- Kondrak, C. L., Seery, M. D., Gabriel, S., & Lupien, S. P. (2017). What’s good for me depends on what I see in you: Intimacy avoidance and resources derived from close others. Self and Identity, 16, 557-579.
- Lupien, S. P., Seery, M. D., & Almonte, J. L. (2012). Unstable high self-esteem and the eliciting conditions of self-doubt. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 762-765.Additional Information
Psychology Today Blog – The Truth About Ourselves
Interview with Psych2go – How to Overcome Your Failures and Build Your Self-Esteem