CCJS Alumnus, Professor Named Next Chair of the Department

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJS) alumnus and Professor Robert Brame, Ph.D. ’97, is now chair of the department, having taken over the position from Distinguished University Professor Sally Simpson, who served in an interim capacity. 

“Bobby is an outstanding scholar. Plus, as a former doctoral student and junior faculty member, he has deep knowledge about the department and its strengths,” said Simpson. “We are lucky to have someone like him lead us forward.”

As chair, one of Brame’s primary goals will simply be to keep the department in the same good standing that brought him to the University of Maryland in the first place. 

“I came to the University of Maryland for graduate school because my mentors encouraged me to do that; my undergraduate and master’s institution [the University of North Carolina at Charlotte] was not a Ph.D.-degree granting institution at that time, and we couldn’t get information off the web in the 1990s,” Brame recalled. “The Maryland criminology program has a longstanding reputation of excellence and leadership in the field, and it became clear early on that UMD would be the best.”

After getting his Ph.D. in 1997, Brame stayed on with the department as an assistant professor until 2001, at which point he decided to move back to the Carolinas to be closer to family. While there, Brame held faculty positions at the University of South Carolina and his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

He also got married and adopted three children, who are now 14, 12 and 11.

“My wife and I decided at some point in the last three to four years that it would be a good all-around move for our family to be here,” said Brame, who was offered a Professor position in the fall of 2020, but delayed the move until the summer of 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “I’m so glad to have the opportunity to come back almost exactly 20 years later.” 

Another goal of Brame’s is to continue supporting undergraduates. Brame said the department is always looking to “keep our programs strong and relevant,” and as such is welcoming a new faculty member this fall. It also recently introduced CCJS418E, a class by Zubin Jelveh, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in UMD’s College of Information Studies, that was designed to provide CCJS students with more data science and data analytics skills.

“I’m at a point in my career where this is a way I can serve the department that has given so much to me over the years,” Brame said. “It’s hard to say you want to take something to an excellent position when it already is, but I’m most hopeful that we can sustain our leadership position in the field and we can continue to do the great job that we've always done at training our grad students to be leaders in the field, prepare our undergraduate students for exciting careers, and continue to advance knowledge about criminology and criminal justice.”

Photo by Tom Bacho. 

Published on Wed, Jul 6, 2022 - 10:02AM