Brian D. Johnson is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. in Crime, Law & Justice in 2003 from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Johnson is the recipient of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award and the ASC Division on Corrections and Sentencing Distinguished New Scholar Award . He is currently one of the co-Editors of Criminology, the flagship academic journal in the field, and he is the gubernatorial Criminal Justice Policy Expert appointee on the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing. His current research interests include contextual variations in prosecution and sentencing, the use of risk assessments in criminal justice, racial and ethnic inequalities in society, and the use of advanced statistical modeling techniques to study criminal processes.