Faculty

This section is a portal for faculty information.

Amanda Agan
Assistant Professor of Economics
Areas of Specialization: Economics of Crime, Labor Markets and Crime
Office: New Jersey Hall, Room 420
Campus: Livingston Campus
Phone: 848-932-8616
Email: aagan@economics.rutgers.edu
Education: Ph.D. University of Chicago (Economics), B.A. George Mason University (Economics)

Dr. Amanda Agan is an Affiliated Professor in the Program in Criminal Justice, as well as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on the economics of crime. Her studies spotlight the unintended consequences of policies such as sex offender registration and ban-the-box laws. Agan has published her research in the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Empirical and Legal Studies; her recent research on ban-the-box policies has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, and in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Wall Street Journal.

Prior to joining Rutgers University Agan was a post-doctoral research associate in the Economics Department and the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. Economics from the University of Chicago and holds a B.A. in Economics from George Mason University.

Sinan Celiksu
Undergraduate Director of the Program in Criminal Justice
Teaching Instructor
Areas of Specialization: Research Methods, Ethnography, Data Science, Computational Social Science, Right-Wing Extremism, Anthropology of Globalization
Campus: Livingston Campus
Email: sinan.celiksu@rutgers.edu
Education: Ph.D. Columbia University (Applied Anthropology)

Before joining Rutgers University, Dr. Celiksu took positions as a visiting faculty at Humboldt State University, as a Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia University, and as a Research Fellow at Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Germany).

Dr. Sinan Celiksu is a Teaching Instructor in the Program in Criminal Justice. Dr. Celiksu’s teaching interests include Qualitative Research Methods, Crime and Social Policy, Criminology, Crime and Justice from Cultural Perspectives, and Crimes of the Powerful. He uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to understand the implications of globalization and neoliberalism on the criminalization of specific populations and the rise of right-wing extremism. His Former research sites include Italy, Kosovo, Turkey, and the US.

Mark Desire
Instructor of Criminal Justice, Forensic Science Advisor
Areas of Specialization: Forensic Science
Office: Lucy Stone Hall, Room A353
Campus: Livingston Campus
Phone: 848-445-4276
Email: mdesire@crimjust.rutgers.edu
Education: J.D. New York Law School, M.S. Allegheny, B.A. Rutgers University

Mark Desire is both an Instructor in the Program in Criminal Justice, and an Assistant Director with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. He works for the Department of Forensic Biology, New York City’s DNA crime lab. Desire has worked there for 15 years and has completed thousands of criminal and Missing Persons cases. His previous employment includes developing biological warfare detection systems for the United States Army.

Desire holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology, and his Juris Doctor from New York Law School. He is a certified DNA auditor and ASCLD inspector; furthermore, he is also a board certified Molecular Specialist with the American Board of Criminalists. Desire is the Family Assistance Center manager for New York City and has been assigned to multiple mass fatalities. Additionally, Desire has taught Criminal Justice courses and Forensic Science courses at Rutgers University, Pace University, and John Jay College.

Brian M. Donnelly
Part-Time Lecturer
Office: Lucy Stone Hall, Room A347
Campus: Livingston Campus
Email: bridonne@crimjust.rutgers.edu

Brian Donnelly earned his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, and his Bachelor of Science degree in Administration of Justice from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He became a member of the New Jersey Bar in 1997. Donnelly has worked as a police officer for 25 years, and is currently a Captain assigned as a patrol commander for a police department in Union County. His tenure as a police officer and as a detective has included work with homicide, sex crimes, and narcotics for which he has received numerous valor awards and commendations. Donnelly also currently works with the law firm of Bramnick, Rodriquez, Mitterhoff, Grabas, and Woodruff.

In addition to his course teaching with the Program in Criminal Justice, Donnelly has taught criminal justice and business law courses at Raritan Valley Community College for 10 years. For 6 years he taught at Centenary College, and for several years he was the lead instructor for the Port Authority Police Academy in the areas of Use of Force and Constitutional Law; moreover, while teaching at the Port Authority Police Academy Donnelly wrote several policies in both areas.

Donnelly is most interested in constitutional law as it pertains to police-citizen encounters with a focus on 4th amendment arrest, search and seizure, and 5th amendment police interviews and interrogations. He enjoys blending his legal background with his police experience to give students a better understanding of criminal justice. Furthermore, Donnelly has a strong interest in the study of Police Use of Force and its various policies and case studies.

Noura Erakat
Associate Professor of Africana Studies
Areas of Specialization: International Law, Humanitarian law, Human rights law, National Security Law, Refugee law, Critical race theory
Office: TBD
Campus: Livingston Campus
Email: ne146@africana.rutgers.edu
Education: J.D. and undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and a LLM in National Security from Georgetown University Law Center. LLM in Legal Education upon completing the Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellowship at Temple University, Beasley School of Law

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice. Her research interests include human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Noura is an editorial committee member of the Journal for Palestine Studies and a co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an electronic magazine on the Middle East that combines scholarly expertise and local knowledge. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and in the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019).

Noura’s scholarly publications include: “Racism, whiteness, and burnout in antiracism movements: How white racial justice activists elevate burnout in racial justice activists of color in the United States" in Ethnicities; "New Imminence in the Time of Obama: The Impact of Targeted Killings on the Law of Self-Defense" in the Arizona Law Review; and "Overlapping Refugee Legal Regimes: Closing the Protection Gap During Secondary Forced Displacement," in the Oxford Journal of International Refugee Law. Her multimedia productions include the Black Palestinian Solidarity video and website as well as the Gaza In Context Pedagogical Project, featuring a short documentary. A full list of her scholarly publications can be found here. Her current research seeks to examine the activist praxes in contemporary renewals of Black-Palestinian solidarity as well as technologies of surveillance and counter-surveillance in greater East Jerusalem.

Noura served as Legal Counsel for the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives from 2007-2009. Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Noura received a New Voices Fellowship to work as the national grassroots organizer and legal advocate at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura worked as the Legal Advocacy Coordinator for the Badil Center for Refugee and Residency Rights from 2010-2013. In that capacity, she drafted their submissions to the human rights treaty bodies and lobbied the US Congress as well as diplomatic missions at the United Nations on their behalf.

Noura has appeared on CBS News, CNN International with Becky Anderson, CNN with Don Lemon, MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” "All In With Chris Hayes," "Ronan Farrow Daily," Fox’s “The O’ Reilly Factor,” NBC’s “Politically Incorrect,” PBS News Hour, NPR, BBC World Service, Democracy Now, and Al-Jazeera America, Arabic, and English. Her publications have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Review of Books, The LA Times, The Nation, USA Today, The Hill, Foreign Policy, Jezebel, Al Ahram English, Al Shabaka, MERIP, Fair Observer, Middle East Eye, The Interdependent, IntLawGrrls, The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, and Jadaliyya.

Noura earned her J.D. and undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa) and a LLM in National Security from Georgetown University Law Center (Distinction & Dean’s List). She also earned a LLM in Legal Education by completing the Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellowship at Temple University, Beasley School of Law.

Books:

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

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