Note: In September 2024, the Center for Social Science Innovation replaced the Public Policy Center and its subsidiary unit the Iowa Social Science Research Center.
The Public Policy Center recently welcomed a new member to the team! Yi-Fang Lu, who recently earned her doctorate in criminology, law and society, will support faculty and staff from the PPC and Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) as a postdoctoral research scholar, assisting with projects investigating crime, violence, policing, court processing, and more.
Lu’s background, education, and research experience
Lu first took interest in criminology as an undergraduate student at the National Taiwan University. While earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology, Lu took an elective course focusing on substance abuse, visiting several treatment centers and prisons in Taiwan. These experiences prompted her to pursue her master’s degree in criminology at the National Taipei University, where she completed her thesis, "The Impacts of Harsh Parenting on Substance Use and Violent Delinquency among Adolescents.”
Her interest in policy-centered research and the criminal justice system eventually led her to Virginia where she began as a doctoral student at George Mason University.
“In Taiwan, I feel researchers don’t do much with policing because to conduct field research, you need to collaborate with the agencies themselves,” said Lu. “Most agencies there don’t want to change their daily practices and existing procedures to collaborate with researchers, but in the United States, and especially in Virginia, there were several agencies that were more receptive.”
Lu’s work with police in Virginia was largely focused on how police officers respond to mental health crises. While Lu and her team experienced several roadblocks throughout the research process—including the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic—they persevered, publishing a series of works highlighting the effects of collaboration between police and mental health professionals during incident responses and the impact of police-clinician co-responses in suburban and rural areas.
Lu’s dissertation honed in even further on the mental health of officers and the risks they encounter in the field. “In the United States, on average, an estimated 150 law enforcement officers die by suicide each year,” Lu explained. “Those numbers are even likely to be underestimated because they take time to verify. I wanted to explore a little bit more about the risk factors inherent in that particular population, and how that kind of risk exposure affects their mental health.”
Lu and her colleagues have since published a paper that examines the impact of cumulative exposure to citizens’ trauma on secondary traumatic stress among police officers. She’s also used a meta-analysis to assess whether training programs can improve officers’ mental health outcomes.
Joining the Public Policy Center
As a postdoctoral researcher, Lu will provide support to faculty and staff from the PPC and IPRC through data collection and analysis, literature review and synthesis, and grant writing and proposal development. She’s already begun to analyze data and draft a report for a project on traffic stops and, as part of the IPRC’s Firearm Safety Research Practice and Action Team, has started an assessment of firearm injuries among children in Iowa.
"The Public Policy Center is thrilled to welcome Yi-Fang to the team,” expressed Ethan Rogers, interim research and operations manager. “Her extensive background and expertise will be a great addition to both the PPC and IPRC. We’re excited to collaborate with her on a number of upcoming projects and to support her as she continues to build her research portfolio.”
Looking forward, Lu also expressed excitement about the potential of developing further research on physical and mental health during her time at the center.
“I’m very interested in the social determinants of health, and whether criminal justice involvement impacts those health outcomes,” explained Lu. “That could take the form of police contact or experiences with incarceration. I wanted to explore those topics a bit more, and I found that there were a lot of affiliated researchers at the Public Policy Center who shared these research interests.” Rogers and Mark Berg, director of the PPC, have previously published studies on the aging effects of incarceration exposure.
To learn more about Yi-Fang Lu, read her professional profile here. To stay updated on the work of the center and upcoming programs, subscribe to our monthly newsletter.