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Biography:

Danielle S. Rudes, Ph.D. is a Professor of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Sam Houston State University. She is also the Deputy Director of the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!). She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Rudes is an expert qualitative researcher whose methods include ethnographic observation, interviews, and focus groups with over 20 years of experience working with corrections agencies at the federal, state, and local/county levels including prisons, jails, probation/parole agencies, and problem-solving courts. She is recognized for her work examining how social control organizations and their middle management, street-level workers, and clients understand, negotiate, and at times, resist change. Dr. Rudes has a broad grant portfolio with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the National Institute of Justice. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (JSAT) and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals. She is also the former chair of the Division on Corrections and Sentencing within the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Dr. Rudes received several awards for her teaching and mentoring including the ASC Teaching Award and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Mentoring and Teaching Innovation awards. Her book, Surviving Solitary: Living and Working in Restricted Housing Units (2022, Stanford University Press) offers an unprecedented look inside RHUs—and a resounding call to more vigorously confront the intentions and the realities of these carceral structures.