
Biography
Dr. Brenda Russell is a Professor of Psychology at Penn State Berks. Her scholarly and teaching interests include psychology and law, perceptions of victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, homicide defendants, and the social psychological and cognitive aspects of jury decision making. She is particularly interested in how gender and sexual orientation play a role in evaluating defendants and victims in legal cases such as self-defense in intimate partner violence, rape, sexual coercion, bullying, and sexual harassment.
Her latest edited book on domestic violence is called "Intimate Partner Violence in the LGBT+ community can be found at https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030447618 and research on female offenders and domestic violence (follow links for more info). Look for her newest edited book due in 2022 with Oxford University Press "Intimate partner violence: Beyond the gender paradigm in legal practice and intervention policy."
Dr. Russell also serves as consultant and program evaluator for various federal and state educational, law enforcement, justice, and treatment programs. Her teaching interest's include introduction to psychology, social psychology, psychology and the law (forensic psychology), research methods, social cognition, program evaluation, careers in psychology, senior capstone, psychology of gender, and criminal investigation.
Publications
Murphy, J. & Russell, B. (Online first, June 2021). Police Officers’ Addiction Frameworks and Stigma toward Drug Abuse. Addictive Behaviors: An International Journal. Available online June 2, 2021.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460321001921…
Murphy, J. & Russell, B. (2020). Police Officers’ Views of Naloxone and Drug Treatment: Does Greater Exposure to Overdoses Lead to More Negativity? Journal of Drug Issues.[Online First: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022042620921363]
Russell, B., & Sturgeon, J.A. (2019). Police Evaluations of Intimate Partner Violence in Heterosexual and Same-Sex Relationships: Does Experience and Training Play a Role? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 34(1), 34-44. [Online First doi:10.1007/s11896-018-9279-8]
Education
Ph.D., Applied Experimental Social Psychology, Emphasis in Psychology and Law, Saint Louis University