CURRENT GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCHERS
Rachel Bleiman
Rachel Bleiman (Summer 2020 – current)
Rachel Bleiman is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice Program at Temple University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice with minors in Psychology and Information Science and Technology from Temple University. Rachel worked with Dr. Rege as a research assistant studying the social science perspective of cybersecurity. As part of her university honors program, she designed and implemented a research study on the effectiveness of social engineering tactics among college students. She is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, such as the LAURA Award, Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award (Social Sciences), NSF SaTC PI Meeting Undergraduate Travel Grant, CARAS Travel Grant, and Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society.
Currently, Rachel has particular interest in the privacy and security sector of cybersecurity along with crime data analysis. She has proficiency working with SPSS and programming in Python and Java. Rachel is currently working as a graduate research assistant with Dr. Rege on her NSF CAREER project.
Rachel’s CV | Rachel’s website
Gabrielle Spence (Spring 2023- current), affiliated member
Gabrielle Spence is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice department with the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University. They hold master’s degrees in Criminal Justice and in Public Administration from Rutgers University. In addition, they earned bachelor’s degrees in Criminology and Law and in Spanish Language from the University of Florida.
Their past experiences include holding the position of Quality Assurance/Data Manager for a juvenile residential center, working as a Research Associate at a local Philadelphia firm, and advising STEM tutors as an administrator in Temple University’s Student Success Center. Spence has presented at national Criminology conferences, led Research Methods lectures at the university level, and contributed meaningfully to community cyber hygiene education initiatives. They are trained in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies & have experience using various software packages, including SPSS, Stata, Atlas.ti & Python.
Spence’s research areas include a combination of youth diversion, juvenile justice policy, and juvenile justice interventions through technology. Currently, they are working with Dr. Rege on merging youth and technology in the nonprofit space. They hope to develop procedures and impact policy that will contribute to more widespread juvenile diversion from the justice system and introduce youth to the world of technology as a means for social, personal and professional elevation.
Spence’s CV | Spence’s website
Hwanhee Park
Hwanhee Park (Spring 2024 – current)
Hwanhee Park is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice department at Temple University. Originally from South Korea, She graduated with a BA in Psychology and Criminology from Pennsylvania State University in 2019. During her undergraduate studies, she served as a research assistant for cognitive psychology under Dr. Richard Carlson, where she assessed how individuals control their mental activity in complex tasks. Currently, she is working on research that aims to improve youth intervention strategies and inform policy development. Her primary research interests include the use of social networking sites, youth crime, juvenile justice, emerging adults, and depression.
FORMER GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCHERS
Katorah Williams (Summer 2018 – Summer 2020, Spring 2021 – Summer 2023)
Katorah Williams is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice department at Temple University. Prior to starting her PhD, she received a BS in Neuroscience and Psychology from Temple University and a MS in Criminal Justice from West Chester University. Through her past work as a clinical research assistant and conducting psychological assessments, and in conjunction with her current academic studies, she has developed a variety of data analysis skills and a unique perspective on crime and its underlying contributors. Her research interests include critical criminology, Black feminist theory, privacy and digital surveillance, and the development of “street smarts.” Katorah’s skill set includes survey design, scale development, qualitative methods, and a proficiency with STATA, SPSS, and ATLAS.ti. She worked with Dr. Rege on the NSF CAREER project. Outside of her work with Dr. Rege, Katorah is in the process of completing manuscripts about women’s re-entry experiences and critical criminology. She is currently working with Dr. Rege to examine how data science can be used to better understand environmental racism and injustice.
Alyssa Mendlein (Summer 2018 – Summer 2020)
Alyssa is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice Program at Temple University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Boston University and a Master of Philosophy in Criminological Research from the University of Cambridge, with a Master’s thesis on police legitimacy and social inequality in Europe. Before entering the program, Alyssa worked as a Research Analyst at EMC Research, a public opinion research firm. During her time at EMC, Alyssa worked on dozens of projects for various clients across the public and private sectors, and was involved in survey design, web survey programming, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, presentation creation, and quality assurance. She is now working on the NSF CAREER project. Her skill sets include knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research analysis; proficiency in SPSS and Stata, some familiarity with R; and qualitative data coding experience.
Mollie Ducoste (Fall 2019 – Summer 2020)
Mollie Ducoste is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice department at Temple University. She Earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Criminal Justice from Hampton University and a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice from Temple University. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a research assistant studying the effects of long-term incarceration on the children of inmates and presented her thesis on state prison privatization policies. While completing her Masters coursework, Mollie also worked as a research assistant on a meta-synthesis project studying police proactivity. Mollie has proficiency with STATA, SPSS, and ATLAS. She is working with Dr. Rege on the NSF EAGER project.
Trinh Nguyen(Fall 2019 – Summer 2020)
Trinh Nguyen is a PhD student in the Criminal Justice Program at Temple University. She earned her BA in Criminology, Law, and Society from the University of California, Irvine and her MS in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the California State University, Long Beach, with a Master’s thesis on the patterns of ecstasy use and other drugs among Asian Americans. Before entering her PhD program, Trinh has worked as an intern for a private investigations firm and as a research assistant to evaluate four programs aimed at strengthening community-police relations through the California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) grant with the City of Long Beach. She also led an evaluation of the Long Beach Youth Leadership Academy with the Long Beach Police Department. Trinh has proficiency in SPSS, some familiarity with STATA, and experience with coding qualitative data. She is now working on the NSF CAREER project.
Nima Asadi (Spring 2017 – Spring 2019)
Nima Asadi is a PhD student at the Computer and Information Science department at Temple University. Nima is a research assistant at the DABI center where his research is in artificial intelligence and data mining with primary focus on temporal data and network prediction and analysis. Prior to Temple, he received a master’s degree in Embedded Systems from Sweden and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics from Iran. Nima is working with Dr. Rege on her NSF CPS grant and is utilizing state of the art in AI and machine learning to characterize and analyze adversarial behavior, intrusion chain progress and adversarial group dynamics during cybercrime commission.
Edward Parker (Fall 2017)
Ed Parker has been serving as an all source analyst for the Army National Guard for 5 years. The position includes taking and analyzing HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, IMINT, AND OSINT in order to focus the information into a form battlefield commanders can use to make the most well-informed decisions.
Ed received his B.A. in Criminal Justice from Temple University. During that time, he received a CARAS undergraduate research award that supported his research work titled “Moving Towards Proactive Cyber Security.” He also worked as undergraduate research assistant with Dr. Rege on her NSF CPS grant. He returns to Temple this Fall 2017 to start the Criminal Justice PhD program. He is interested in national security and critical infrastructure protection (both physical and digital). He worked with Dr. Rege on her NSF CAREER project.
Janice Paulson (Fall 2015-May 2017)
Janice holds Summa Cum Laude and Cum Laude undergraduate degrees in Computer Network Engineering and Computer Network Security from Delaware Technical and Community College and Wilmington University. In 2010 she founded Delaware’s first annually reoccurring multi day information security conference, Security BSides Delaware. To celebrate BSidesDE’s 5th year, “Spawn Camp” was started to allow for dedicated children’s events focusing on STEM interests.
As a graduate student, she was excited to approach cyber security from the criminal justice perspective. Traditionally cyber security is primarily focused on the technical aspects of information systems. Examining crime theories is a fascinating way to build more complete risk mitigation strategies that consider the adversarial models becoming apparent in the industry. She applied her industry experience towards Dr. Rege’s NSF CPS grant. Janice earned her MA in Criminal Justice in May 2017.
Bo Niemoczynski (Fall 2015-Spring 2016)
Bogdan Niemoczynski is a Ph. D. student at Temple University after receiving his MSEE and BS in Physics from Temple University and East Stroudsburg University respectively. His primary focus is on control systems and security. He is experienced with PID control, nonlinear control, magnetics, and cryptography. He assisted Dr. Rege with with her NSF CPS project.
James Kollmer (Fall 2015-Spring 2016)
James has a BA in Physics from East Stroudsburg University and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Temple University. His focus is in power systems, controls, and hardware security. He worked on the NSF CPS project, where his role was to both construct and test the IEEE 9 bus system in both hardware and in simulation. He assisted Dr. Rege with her NSF CPS project.
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