Juan Medina Ariza

Biography

I received my BA in Public Law and a Postgraduate Degree in Criminology from the University of Seville (Spain). In 1997 I graduated with an MA in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, receiving the Richard Hughes Award for topping my promotion. I obtained my first PhD from the Department of Criminal Law at the University of Seville in February of 2000 and a second (long story!) PhD in Criminal Justice from Rutgers Universityin January of 2002. Both thesis focused on gender violence. My Spanish dissertation was the first survey on intimate partner violence in Spain and my US-based dissertation, relying on GIS and spatial econometric tools, explored the social geography of gender violence in New York City.

I was born in Sevila (Spain), the most beautiful city in the world, where I worked as a research fellow of the Andalusian Institute of Criminology, before moving to the USA. I lived and worked in New York working as a research associate at Victim Services (now called Safe Horizon), where I was involved on elder abuse research, and as senior research associate at the Violence Institute of New Jersey(UMDNJ, now part of Rutgers), where I helped to implement public health epidemiological surveillance on violence. I was also a research fellow of the National Consortium on Violence Research (now defunct), as well as a visiting fellow at the Universidade Federal da Bahia (Brazil) and Heuni (Finland).

With all this travelling, it is little surprise I have a strong interest in comparative criminology and criminal justice. I retain an interest in crime and justice in Spain and the Americas. In particular, I am member of a research network based in Catalonya that studies crime and sentencing policy in Spain . I was also the Chief Editor of the official journal of the Spanish Society of Criminology from 2003 to 2005 and continue to collaborate with this journal as an assistant editor. In June 2016 I was elected president of the Spanish Society of Criminology.

Since 2000, however, Manchester is home. My work in the UK has covered domestic violence, homicide, stop and search, and gangs. For ongoing work, you can see details in the research tab of this profile.

Areas of expertise

Research Networks and Beacons

• Manchester Informatics
• Data Science Institute