A criminal justice professor who teaches online for Penn State World Campus has been named one of the most influential criminologists of the last decade by Academic Influence, a team of academics and data scientists who provide rankings in higher education.
Shaun L. Gabbidon, distinguished professor of criminal justice with Penn State Harrisburg’s School of Public Affairs, was ranked as the 24th most influential criminologist. According to Academic Influence, top influential criminologists of the decade have significantly impacted the discipline of criminology from 2010 to 2020. Gabbidon also ranked as the 16th most influential criminologist in the past 20 years.
The ranking system measures the impact of the work produced by the world’s top influencers.
Gabbidon teaches CRIMJ 304: Security Administration and CRIMJ 450W: Senior Seminar for the Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice that is offered online through Penn State World Campus.
Gabbidon has served as a fellow at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and has taught at the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gabbidon has authored more than 100 scholarly publications, including more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and 13 books. His most recent books include the co-authored monographs Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America and Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime; the co-authored texts Race and Crime and Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice: An international Dilemma; and the co-edited book Building a Black Criminology: Race, Theory, and Crime.
His research interests include race and crime; public opinion on race, crime, and justice; security administration; criminology; and criminal justice pedagogy.
The recipient of numerous awards, Gabbidon was named a fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2019. In addition, he was the recipient of the 2015 Julius Debro Award for outstanding service and the 2016 Outstanding Teaching Award, both from the Division on People of Color and Crime of the American Society of Criminology.
Gabbidon is a member of the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. He is also the founding editor of Race and Justice: An International Journal, the leading journal in the area of race, ethnicity, and justice. He currently is the editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education.
Gabbidon received his doctoral degree in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Baltimore, and a Bachelor of Science degree in government administration from Christopher Newport University.