Kerri Raissian is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut and the founding Director of UConn’s Center for Advancing Research, Methods, and Scholarship (ARMS) in Gun Injury Prevention. She also serves on Connecticut’s Commission for Community Gun Violence Intervention and Prevention and is the co-leader of the Connecticut chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network.
She is particularly interested in understanding how to reduce domestic violence, improve child well-being, and reduce gun-related death and injury. Her research employs causal inference techniques to understand how policies, programs, and other interventions affect family safety and child well-being. She also uses descriptive tools – such as surveys and interviews – to measure and understand citizen support for firearm interventions, such as secure firearm storage and permitless carry of firearms.
In partnership with Cassandra Crifasi and Jennifer Dineen, she co-edited Preventing Gun Violence in America: What Works and What is Possible, a volume of The ANNALS of The American Academy of Political and Social Science. This collection of scholarship is the first multidisciplinary review of gun violence and prevention strategies in the U.S. Her work has also been published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), Social Forces, Review of Economics of the Household, Child Abuse & Neglect, Child Maltreatment, Population Research and Policy Review, among others.
Raissian holds a Ph.D. and MPA in public administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a BA from Vanderbilt University.