Current Projects

Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (Cohort, Summer 2024).

Home to Texas

Home to Texas (H2TX) connects first-year students with paid internship and research opportunities in their home communities across the state of Texas. Through their engagement in the summer-long program, students are able to learn more about their own communities, develop professional skills and networks, and contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary research conducted by faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. This experience helps students and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of Texas, while also fostering stronger relationships between the University and Texas communities.

PeaceRox

Cities across the United States are implementing community-based youth violence reduction programs to respond to concerns about adolescent engagement and exposure to crime and violence. The Council for At-Risk Youth (CARY) has long supported in-school violence reduction programming in Central Texas, and CARY’s PeaceRox program is a prime candidate for expansion in the Austin area and surrounding communities. This research collaboration between The University of Texas at Austin and CARY seeks to rigorously assess the implementation and impact of PeaceRox in three Central Texas high schools. With support from Arnold Ventures, our hope is to gain insight into how the program functions on a day-to-day basis and understand the impact of the opportunity to participate in the program on youth outcomes including behavioral and disciplinary incidents in school; school attendance, grades, and graduation; and engagement with the juvenile and adult legal systems.

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program

The Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and the Initiative for Law, Societies, and Justice, is pleased to announce the 2024 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program, contingent on funding from the National Science Foundation. The REU program offers talented undergraduates the opportunity for classroom training and hands-on research experience during an 8-week session on The University of Texas at Austin campus.

OVP Safety Project

The Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) brings new possibilities for safety by implementing targeted, contextualized, data-informed, and community driven programs where they are needed most.

Travis County Transformation Project

A pre-arrest, community-based pilot program for 15 to 16-year-olds involved with family violence in the home. An alternative to juvenile detention, the Travis County Transformation Project uses restorative justice practices to repair harm, restore connection to community, and prevent future violence.

Fighting for Justice at the Ballot Box

Fighting for Justice at the Ballot Box is a project to educate justice impacted people about their right to vote. We worked with teams of Mobilization Captains in Austin and Houston, who provided information about the rights of people with convictions to vote in Texas to their communities through relational organizing.