Who we are
Wesley T. Smith, PhD
Prior to completing his PhD in Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University, Wesley Served in the United States Army for 12 years.
Wesley has experience working on research projects that focus on staff retention, staff training, self harm, recidivism, misconduct, and program evaluation.
During projects he leverages multiple methods to include novel data collection, traditional statistical analysis, and emerging methods such as machine learning.
Kathleen E. Padilla, PhD
Dr. Kathleen E. Padilla completed her PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University in 2021.
Her research interests include police officer health and wellness, gender equity in policing, and community engagement.
Kathleen utilizes mixed methods in all aspects of her research desig, survey and interview guide creation, and program evaluation.
Francis R. Benton, MA
Francis “Frank” R. Benton completed his master’s degreee in Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University in 2019. He is currently working towards his doctorate in Criminal Justice at Texas State University.
His research interests inluce prison violence and contraband networks, prison gang operations, and special interests prison populations.
Frank specializes in the building , cleaning, and management of large-scale relational databases.