The Department of Justice, Law and Society hosts two visiting professors during the academic year.
Those interested in being considered for an appointment as a visiting professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University please contact Michael Baney, Assistant to the Chair, at baney@american.edu.
A sociologist and criminologist, Vezzadini is a professor at the University of Bologna - Department of Sociology and Law, and a Juvenile Court Judge in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Professor Vezzadini, a student at American University in 2001, earned her PhD in criminology at the University of Bologna.
As a visiting professor at AU, her research consisted of a study of best practices for assistance to juvenile victims of crime in the United States, as well as developing a model to adapt and transfer for use in the Italian juvenile justice system. Moreover, she analyzed the way public and private social agencies work to support the victims of crimes, and conducted in-depth comparison between the United States and Italy and the types of protection provided to victims in general as well as special groups, such as the elderly, women, and abused children. In particular, she studied the link between globalization and victimization processes, the subject of the recent book she completed while at AU.
Holmberg is an associate professor in criminology with the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen. His main field of interest is policing, but he also works with risk prevention. He was recently one of the principal investigators in a major evaluation of a police reform in Denmark. While at AU, his primary focus was on police reform, and police use of less-than-lethal force. In addition, he made empirical observations on the contrast between Danish and American policing.
