Abigail George
Abigail George is an MA student in Criminal Justice at John Jay College with a strong foundation in research, advocacy, and policy focused on advancing equity and justice. Her undergraduate research examined post-incarceration trauma in Black communities and racial inequities in higher education using qualitative and quantitative methods.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Tyron Pope, her current research examines how punitive versus rehabilitative approaches affect the mental health and development of Black youth in the juvenile justice system, using a mixed-methods approach to inform trauma-informed juvenile justice reform.
01
Graduate
Ali Hassan
02
Undergraduate
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Ali Hassan is a third-year Law and Society major at John Jay College, minoring in English, with a strong interest in law, criminal justice, and how legal and social institutions shape communities. A member of the Apple Corps Program and recipient of the 2025–2026 Carol Robles-Román Scholarship, he plans to attend law school to pursue a career as a criminal defense attorney.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Ray Rosas, his research examines whether the term "Desi" appropriately describes South Asians and their diaspora, given that its broad use can overlook the region's distinct cultures, religions, and identities. Now in his second year with OSRC, Ali is expanding his research to include media coverage of the term and interviews with South Asians on cultural representation and identity.
Alia Burke
Alia Burke is a senior at John Jay pursuing a major and minor in sociology and economics, with plans to pursue a doctorate in sociology and a career in sociological research.
Now in her second year of research, Alia's project examines corporate social responsibility, investigating whether shopping with smaller businesses correlates with less interest in materialism, and exploring the underlying drivers of consumer behavior tied to overconsumption and modern business practices.
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03
Undergraduate
Andrea Aponte Fermin
04
Undergraduate
Andrea Aponte Fermin is a forensic psychology senior at John Jay College and an international student researcher interested in how sociocultural and political contexts shape mental health outcomes among immigrant and Latinx populations. She aspires to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical/Counseling Psychology and build a career advancing equitable mental health research for underserved communities.
Her research examines how living under an authoritarian political context shapes the mental health and civic engagement of Venezuelans, focusing on how pre-migration experiences like political instability and violence relate to psychological outcomes such as anxiety and depression, as well as political participation and community engagement.
Annie Xiang Li
Annie Xiang Li is a junior at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a Macaulay Honors student pursuing an integrated bachelor's-master's degree in forensic science, with a minor in fraud examination. She has conducted wet-lab research at Carbon Infuse and tutored incarcerated students through the Petey Greene Program.
In her first year with OSRC, she worked with Dr. Rebecca Weiss to evaluate whether large language models can translate mental health assessments as faithfully as human translators. Her mixed-methods study, using back-translations of the Chinese Beck Depression Inventory, found that blinded expert clinicians often could not distinguish AI translations from human ones, though they noted meaningful clinical, linguistic, and cultural differences. She presented the findings at the 2026 APA Convention, Division 12, and aims to extend this work into a peer-reviewed commentary on language, culture, and AI in mental health care.
05
Undergraduate
Cordale Jimmison
06
Undergraduate
Cordale Jimmison is a Macaulay Honors College student at John Jay College pursuing a BA in forensic psychology with a minor in biology. His research interests include forensic assessment and the psychological factors influencing patient health outcomes, and he plans to pursue dual MD/PhD programs bridging scientific discovery with equitable patient care.
His current research evaluates the diagnostic accuracy of alternative scoring methods for the Dot Counting Test (DCT), a performance validity test used in neuropsychological evaluations, examining whether abbreviated scoring approaches maintain accuracy across diverse populations while reducing scoring burden and error.
Cristina Nieves
Cristina Nieves is a third-year JD/MA dual degree student in forensic psychology at John Jay College and CUNY School of Law. She completed her undergraduate degree at Macaulay Honors College at Queens College, double majoring in Psychology and English, and now works as a research assistant in Dr. Katzman's Racial Justice and Policing Research Lab.
Under Dr. Katzman's mentorship, she researches judicial decision-making in awarding financial compensation to exonerees, particularly those wrongfully convicted due to false confessions, aiming to inform more consistent and equitable outcomes for victims of the justice system.
07
Graduate
Danielle Key
08
Undergraduate
Danielle Key is a student at John Jay College, double majoring in sociology and criminology with minors in psychology and community justice. She is a researcher, writer, and Black Feminist Abolitionist whose work spans Black feminist sociology, queer criminology, and the Black radical tradition, studying Black people's experiences with oppression and resistance.
As a second-year OSRC Scholar, Dani is conducting a qualitative study on system-impacted Black women's perspectives on Black feminist abolitionist ideologies, using focus groups and interviews to explore how their experiences with the criminal legal system shape their understanding of safety, justice, and freedom.
Elizabeth Aiyedun
Elizabeth Aiyedun is a junior majoring in law and society at John Jay College. Born and raised in Nigeria, she is passionate about giving back to the community that shaped her and aspires to become a criminal defense attorney and/or immigration lawyer after law school.
Under the continued mentorship of Professor Ray Rosas, Elizabeth's research explores immigration and deportation policies under the current administration and their legal ramifications. Building on last year's examination of court cases, she now focuses on the lived experiences of affected immigrants and evaluates legal and non-legal strategies to protect their constitutional rights.
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09
Undergraduate
Ellie Papraniku
10
Undergraduate
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Mentor: Rosa Squillacote
Ellie Papraniku is a senior at John Jay College pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in political science with a minor in law. An aspiring attorney with a strong interest in criminal law, she hopes to become a prosecutor and has completed internships with the Richmond County District Attorney's Office and in the chambers of Judge Desmond A. Green.
Under the mentorship of Professor Rosa Squillacote, Ellie's research explores gender and pop culture through the lens of American Political Development, investigating the political implications of the "tradwife" phenomenon and why traditional ideals of domestic femininity continue to resonate today.
Emmanuel White
Emmanuel White is a second-year computer science student at John Jay College with a growing interest in cybersecurity, networking, and network security research, sparked by a high school documentary on cybersecurity and hands-on exploration of network traffic using Wireshark. He hopes to build a career in network security.
His current research examines how usernames and passwords can be exposed when sent across networks using older, unencrypted protocols, using Wireshark to collect traffic data and investigating whether a machine learning model can identify credential leakage patterns across different protocols.
11
Undergraduate
Genesis Diaz
12
Undergraduate
Mentor: Alexandra R. Nicolaides
Mentor: Dr. Peter Diaczuk
Genesis Diaz is a junior majoring in forensic science at John Jay College with a particular interest in hands-on laboratory work, trace evidence, and the instrumentation used to solve crimes. She hopes to work in a crime lab setting, contributing to research and the criminal justice system.
Under the mentorship of Professor Alexandra Nicolaides and Dr. Peter Diaczuk, Genesis is exploring how materials characterization and multiple instrumentation methods can be used to analyze pigments for art authentication, transitioning in her second year of OSRC to hands-on laboratory work gathering quantitative data that highlights parallels between authenticating art and solving criminal cases.
Grace Chester
Grace Chester is a second-year graduate student in the forensic psychology master's program at John Jay College. She earned her bachelor's degree from Elon University, double majoring in Psychology and Music in the Liberal Arts with a minor in Piano Pedagogy, and her research interests include eyewitness memory, confidence judgments, and bias in legal decision-making.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Katzman, Grace studies how people interpret verbal expressions of eyewitness confidence, examining whether factors like crime type, eyewitness age, and confidence level shape how these statements are understood, with the aim of informing best practices for presenting and evaluating eyewitness evidence in legal settings.
13
Graduate
14
Undergraduate
Jiahe Chen
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Jiahe Chen (she/they) is an undergraduate majoring in forensic psychology at John Jay College, driven by a passion for psychiatry and mental health, advocacy for LGBTQ+ healthcare equity, and a fascination with how artificial intelligence can revolutionize clinical diagnostics and treatment.
Under the mentorship of Professor Philip Yanos, Jiahe's research focuses on capturing subtle linguistic patterns in psychiatric verbal data using Natural Language Processing, evaluating whether machine learning models can accurately reconstruct and predict clinical questionnaire scores to enable more precise, objective, and continuous diagnostic monitoring in psychiatry.
Julia Hurynovich
Julia Hurynovich is a junior at Macaulay Honors College at John Jay, majoring in forensic psychology, with a passion for understanding the experiences of children in the criminal justice system and how existing systems affect their treatment in psychology and medical contexts. She hopes her research will prepare her for a career in Child Abuse Pediatrics.
Now in her second year with OSRC, Julia's research focuses on suggestibility in child play therapy, evaluating the extent to which mock jurors can recognize such therapy as suggestive, with the goal of informing whether professional testimony is needed to educate jurors on this issue in court.
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15
Undergraduate
16
Graduate
Lucia Palumbo
Lucia Palumbo is a senior majoring in forensic psychology with a minor in gender studies, passionate about clinical research and psychological testing. After graduating, she plans to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology and work in hospitals conducting research and psychological assessments.
In her first year with OSRC, Lucia is working alongside Professor Maria Hartwig to replicate and expand a 2018 study on jurors' attitudes toward suspects who lie versus confess in court, comparing confrontational interrogations with investigative interviews to promote methods that could reduce false confessions and wrongful convictions.
Mackenzie Adams
Mackenzie Adams is a senior majoring in law & society at John Jay College and a U.S. Navy veteran with over a decade of experience in public affairs and communications for federal agencies, including the VA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Her interests include criminal justice reform, reentry, and trauma-informed justice, and she plans to attend law school to pursue a career in policy development.
Under the mentorship of Professor Jamie Longazel, her research examines how community-based therapeutic horticulture programs support individuals impacted by the criminal legal system during reentry, partnering with The Horticultural Society of New York to explore how such programs foster wellbeing and connectedness beyond recidivism alone.
17
Undergraduate
Sofia Minet
18
Graduate
Sofia Minet is a second-year graduate student in the forensic psychology master's program at John Jay College. She completed her undergraduate studies at Binghamton University, majoring in psychology, and is interested in wrongful convictions, eyewitness identifications, and plea bargaining, aiming to improve legal system procedures and outcomes for those involved.
A research assistant in Dr. Jacqueline Katzman's Racial Justice & Policing Lab, Sofia's research examines plea bargaining decision-making among lawyers and law students, investigating how certain variables shape their decisions with implications for public policy and social justice.