She earned her B.A. (1991) in criminal justice from Kentucky Wesleyan College, her M.S. (1992) in juvenile and correctional services from Eastern Kentucky University, and her Ph.D. (2000) in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Her numerous journal publications have been in the area of community corrections, correctional offi cer job satisfaction, and the juvenile justice system. She is the co-author of Community-Based Corrections: A Text/Reader (2012) and Juvenile Justice: Theory, Systems, and Organization (2005). She has been a co-investigator on a National Institute of Justice grant assessing the effectiveness of a cognitive-based program in a medium security prison and many small grants on various criminal justice system issues.