Alison Cox (nee Colby) began her doctoral studies at the School of Criminal Justice in 2013. She first came to Michigan State University in 2011 as a Master’s graduate student and graduated with her MS in Criminal Justice in 2013. Previously, she earned her BS in Criminal Justice with an Emphasis in Forensic Psychology from Texas State University at San Marcos in 2006. She is currently a doctoral candidate and will be graduating in Spring 2019.

From 2007 to 2011, she worked professionally in the areas of domestic violence and abuse, as well as family law. Some of these positions included serving as an Administrative Assistant/Analyst to a non-profit counseling center and shelter and as a Legal Secretary for the Travis County District Attorney’s Family Justice Division. The professional experience gained in these positions remains a strong influence for why she conducts research that is participatory and community-based in nature.

In addition to being a qualitative researcher, her other research interests include corrections, specifically the prisoner-family relationship; barriers to visitation; prisoner reentry. She is also a critical criminologist and is involved in several sub-areas in this field, particularly feminist, convict, rural, and queer criminology.

Alison also holds an Interdisciplinary Graduate Specialization in Women and Gender, which provides a feminist criminology perspective to her work. In 2016, Alison collaborated with the Center for Gender in Global Context to form the Feminist Research Methodology (FRM) Graduate Community, an interdisciplinary group of graduate students who are interested in feminist research. In 2017, she was selected as a Writing Fellow for the Graduate School and was responsible for facilitating a writing group for SCJ graduate students.

She has taught the following courses for the School of Criminal Justice and the Center for Gender in Global Context:

  • WS 202: Introduction to Contemporary Feminisms and Gender Theories (Summer 2018: Online)
  • CJ 220: Criminology (Fall 2017)
  • CJ 425: Women and Criminal Justice (Fall 2015; Spring 2018)

Alison is also trained as an Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program Instructor and recently assisted Academic Specialist, Derrick Franke, with his Fall 2018 course on Restorative Justice (CJ 491) that meets at Carson City Correctional Facility.