Lisa L. Sample, PhD
Lisa L. Sample earned her PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She currently serves as the Reynolds Professor of Public Affairs and Community Service in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Her principal area of expertise is in policy analysis and program evaluation.
For almost 20 years, Dr. Sample’s research has been focused in the area of sex offense policy. She currently serves as President of the Sex Offense Policy Research workgroup, which is affiliated with the American Society of Criminology. She has used both quantitative and qualitative data to investigate sex offending, offenders, and the law. In these investigations she has conducted sex offending recidivism studies as well as research on sex offense policy outcomes and on public opinion regarding sex offense policy. Most recently, Dr. Sample's work has focused on the consequences of living under sex offense laws in the community. Her forthcoming book, Living Under Sex Offense Laws: The Consequences for Offenders and their Families, shares the findings of her interviews with registrants, their partners/spouses, and their adult children concerning the effects that public registration, residency restrictions, and civil commitment have on their social, political, and psychological wellbeing. Her other published works can be found in journals such as Criminology and Public Policy, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Journal of Crime and Justice, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, among others.
Dr. Sample is an applied and practical researcher who always has an eye on improving policy and programming for marginalized groups. Since 2007, she has been interviewing registered citizens who are in the community post-sanction or during their punishments. Those interview data culminated in the creation of Fearless, the first non-therapeutic peer-to-peer support group for registrants, their wives/partners, their parents and siblings, and their adult children. Fearless brings together groups of individuals with similar hardships and successes every month, so they can obtain peer advice, social support, and accountability. There are currently two branches of Fearless in Nebraska, with hopes of more to come across the country.
Dr. Sample has been the editorial assistant to the editor of Criminology, the top-ranked journal in her field. She has reviewed manuscripts for publication in academic and trade journals, along with book proposals for publishing companies and grant proposals for nonprofit organizations such as the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as for government agencies like the National Institute of Justice. She has extensive experience working with graduate students from many fields, she regularly supervises students on research projects, and she has grant management and contract work experience. Dr. Sample brings to her work at the Dulles Research Institute an interdisciplinary approach to empirical research that is geared toward enabling policy makers to make informed decisions.