Joseph Richardson

Richardson is the Acting Chair of the African-American Studies Department and the Joel and Kim Feller Endowed Professor of African-American Studies and Anthropology.

His research focuses on four specific areas: (1)Gun violence (2)The intersection of structural violence, interpersonal violence and trauma among Black boys and young Black men (3)The intersection of the criminal justice and healthcare systems in lives of young Black men; and (4)Parenting strategies for low-income Black male youth. Trained as a criminologist and medical anthropologist, Dr. Richardson uses an inter-disciplinary, intersectional and longitudinal qualitative research approach. He is specifically interested in understanding the ways that the healthcare and criminal justice systems intersect and impact the lives of Black male survivors of violence. Dr. Richardson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Transformative Research and Applied Violence Intervention Lab (TRAVAIL). This lab uses a multidisciplinary approach integrating behavioral and social science, medicine, public health, social work, law, computer science and the digital humanities to understand gun violence, its causes and collateral consequences, which will inform the development of innovative interventions to reduce gun violence.