INTRODUCTION
Office: Blair Hall 3116
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminology
Fall 2025 Office Hours: Mondays 2pm–3pm | Tuesdays 1pm–2pm | Wednesdays 2pm–4pm
Paul Odér (O-dare) holds a Criminal Justice M.Phil from CUNY The Graduate Center, and will receive his PhD in Criminal Justice later this year. His main research topic is lead poisoning, and he’s currently finishing his dissertation on gentrification, lead poisoning, and youth violence in New York City.
Paul is an interdisciplinary scholar with training in criminal justice, criminology, forensic science, forensic anthropology, and creative writing. His past research covers topics such as police violence, human-wildlife conflict/wildlife criminology, and community violence intervention. He joins the department as the former Research Coordinator, and a former Research Specialist and Fellowship Specialist for the NYC Climate Justice Hub housed at the CUNY Center for the Humanities.
Paul will be teaching Policing Society: A Sociological Analysis and Introduction to Criminal Justice this fall.
Research & Creative Interests
Paul’s main research focuses on lead poisoning, and his current dissertation work focuses on gentrification’s impact on childhood lead poisoning and youth violence in New York City. Upon completing his dissertation, his upcoming work on lead poisoning will use photo voice and autophotographies to critique traditional media frames and conceptualizations of lead poisoning, and to ask how Black families adapt to steadily declining public health services. He will also use a political economy approach, to focus on acute and chronic lead poisoning globally, and its relationship to neoliberal public health and economic policies.
His future work will also focus on environmental justice/environmental humanities, urban exploration, and the sociology of sport.
Publications
Scholarly Journal Publications
Jones-Brown, D., Dawson, A., Blount-Hill, K., Fuller, K., Odér, P, & Fradella, H. (2021). Am I my brother’s keeper: Can duty to intervene policies save lives and reduce the need for special prosecutors in officer-involved homicide cases? Criminal Justice Studies, 1-45. doi: 10.1080/1478601X.2021.1964694.
- Reprinted: The Criminal Law Bulletin (2021).
Blount-Hill, Kwan-Lamar & Odér, Paul. (2020). From Power and Privilege to Dignity and Respect: Developing a Theory of Species Stratification and Interspecies Dominance. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8: 553460. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2020.553460.
Other Publications
Pugliese, K., Odér, P., Hudson, T., & Butts, J. (2022). Community Violence Intervention at the roots (CVI–R): Building evidence for grassroots community violence prevention. New York, NY: Research & Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
Odér, Paul. (2020). Why the rot runs so deep: Racist policing is indisputable, and leaders have done almost nothing about it. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-riots-and-protestssymptom-failure-20200604-5nbmokixlrgsvhzv4rycnt4aji-story.html.
Education & Training
PhD. City University of New York, The Graduate Center, Criminal Justice (expected 2025)
M.Phil City University of New York, The Graduate Center, Criminal Justice (2023)
B.S.A.S Youngstown State University, Forensic Science (2016)