A record number of doctoral students graduated from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice last week.
Dr Richard Parker, Dr Susan Donkin, Dr Dan Birks and Dr Nadine Katic (nee McKillop) graduated along with 60 undergraduate and 20 postgraduate students at the Brisbane Convention Centre, South bank.
Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Associate Professor Janet Ransley, said that the graduates’ degrees in Criminology and Criminal Justice had equipped them well for their new careers in fields including policing, corrections, security, forensic mental health, community services and policy work.
“All four PhD graduates are making substantial contributions to improving knowledge about major crime problems in Australia,” said Associate Professor Ransley.
“Understanding how and why particular crimes occur, and how the justice system can best respond to them, is key to reducing further offending and making the community safer.”
“Drs Birks, Donkin and Katic are continuing their research at Griffith University, while Dr Parker is applying his findings in practice in his work in the criminal justice system,” she said.
Doctoral research included:
– Computational Agent-Based Models of Offending: Assessing the Generative Sufficiency of Opportunity-Based Explanations of the Crime Event by Dr Birks
– The Evolution of Pre-emption in Anti-Terrorism Law: A Cross-Jurisdictional Examination by Dr Donkin
– The role of Moral Emotions in the Onset and Progression of Child Sex Offending by Dr Richard Parker
– The Origins of Child Sexual Abuse: An Analysis of Developmental and Situational Factors by Dr Katic