Expertise
Firearm Violence, Homicide, Intimate Partner Violence
Biography
Karissa R. Pelletier joined the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University’s Public Policy Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2023. Prior to her appointment at Temple, she completed a T32 Training postdoctoral fellowship at University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP) after completing her PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University in 2021. Her dissertation work examined the covariates of firearm homicide victimization for children and teens to better understand the multifaceted risk factors that exist for firearm homicide. Her findings demonstrated that firearm homicides differ between children (0-12) and teens (13-19) in significant ways at the individual-, situational-, community-, and state-levels.
Dr. Pelletier’s research focuses on the situational transactions of violence, homicide, and intimate partner violence, with special focus on firearm violence and homicide, in order to create evidence-based solutions to reduce violence. In her work, she has employed mixed methods in order to better understand the contexts of violence and explored how the larger social environment impacts instances of violence. Further, she has begun an exploration of how firearm owners talk amongst themselves in online groups in order to better understand the language used among firearm owners to help discussions of firearm prevention across all groups. During her time as a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Pelletier plans to continue her work on firearm violence and homicide prevention by engaging in community participatory research and process evaluation surrounding violence prevention and intervention strategies.