Kelly Welch

Dr. Kelly Welch is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University. She is Villanova University’s criminology program director and regularly teaches Introduction to Criminology, Race, Crime, & Justice, and the capstone Senior Seminar for graduating majors. She earned doctoral and master’s degrees in Criminology from Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Her B.A. in Social Ecology is from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Welch’s scholarship addresses how individuals are categorized as criminals as well as the methods and rationales used to control and punish them. Her research examines racial and ethnic disparities in school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline, criminal and terrorist stereotypes, and public support for social controls for juveniles and adults.

Dr. Welch has served as an expert for the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, among others, and she has served on the editorial boards of Sociology of Education, Social Problems, and Youth Violence & Juvenile Justice. She has given a number of academic and public talks about her research, and her publications have appeared in prestigious scientific journals such as Criminology, Social Problems, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Race and Justice, and Sociology of Education.