5 Questions with Faculty: Matt Vogel

Matt Vogel and his wife, Karlijn, are surviving an Albany winter with their kids, 4-month-old Lucas and 4-year-old Thomas. (Photo provided)

ALBANY, N.Y. (March 10, 2020) — Matt Vogel is back in his first Upstate winter in several years, basking in the cold, the wind, the snow, the rain and his 4-month-old’s day care germs.

The UAlbany alum — Sociology BA in ‘06 and PhD in ‘12 — returned to the University in Fall 2019 as an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice, after working for several years in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri.

“I returned to UAlbany because of the stellar reputation of the School of Criminal Justice and the many professional opportunities it affords,” Vogel said. “I also really missed the balmy winters in Upstate New York.”

What are you working on now?

I’m involved with a unique hospital-based violence prevention initiative in St. Louis. In a nutshell, people who appear in the ER with a penetrating injury (e.g., a gunshot wound) are much more likely to: 1) reappear in the hospital with a subsequent injury; 2) fall victim to homicide; or 3) commit future acts of violence. The four major trauma centers in St. Louis have partnered to implement a program that provides services to victims of violence in the hospital and supports their psychosocial needs in the community once they are released. By intervening bedside, we hope that we can reduce retaliatory violence in St. Louis.

The project is unique in that it involves cooperation between agencies and actors who usually operate in their own silos (e.g., physicians, public health researchers, criminologists, social workers). It’s been a rewarding project and has spawned my involvement with several long-term partnerships and related violence prevention programs in St. Louis.

What made you decide to pursue your field?

I can trace my interest in criminology to my own involvement with the criminal justice system as a teenager. When I first started off, I was interested in how criminal records can influence life experiences well after formal punishment ends, for instance, by affecting job prospects, college admissions, health and mortality. Over time, I became more interested in how inequality shapes life chances and the implications of inequality for understanding both aggregate trends and individual variation in criminal conduct.

My professional trajectory has been overwhelmingly shaped by faculty here at UAlbany. I took Intro to Sociology with Al Higgins (rest in peace) my sophomore year of college. Al’s unfettered passion for all things sociological was contagious. I was hooked by the age of 20. Ryan King and Steve Messner convinced me that I should concentrate my focus in criminology, an area in which they’ve both made their indelible marks. Glenn Deane and Scott South helped me overcome my aversion to quantitative methods and are probably the reason I enjoy teaching statistics as much I do (see below).

So, it was some combination of poor choices, dumb luck and superb mentorship that led me to where I am today.

If you weren’t teaching at a university, what would you be doing?

I’d be a rock star. I’m only half joking. I’ve played in and out of bands since I was a teenager. I’m very content with my career path, but I sometimes wonder what my life would look like if I had pursued music full time.

What’s your favorite class to teach?

Believe it or not, my favorite class to teach is Intro to Statistics. It’s a class that has been required at all of the undergraduate and graduate programs in which I’ve taught. Many students approach the class with a sense of apprehension and a confusion as to why a class like stats would be necessary for a degree in criminal justice. Throughout the semester, I try to convince students that: 1) there is nothing scary about math; 2) data and statistical analyses can help inform their understanding of crime and the criminal justice system; and 3) that data literacy can help them get a leg-up in their careers.

I genuinely enjoy watching my math-phobic students “get it,” so to speak. Of all the classes I’ve taught over the years, stats is the one in which I’m sure students are leaving my course having acquired a skill set they did not possess when they entered the class. In other words, it’s the class in which I know I’m actually teaching something useful.

What’s your favorite spot on campus?

I’m not sure if it still exists, but when I was an undergraduate I lived for a while on Indian Quad. There used to be a trail leading through the woods from UPD out to Western Ave. That general area is now home to Liberty Terrace and the baseball diamonds. Back in 2003-04 it was mostly woods surrounding a large pond. There was a small opening on one side of the pond where someone had strung a rope swing from a tree. I used to love going there to take a break from the hustle and bustle of campus life. It was one of the few places on campus where I could sit for hours without seeing another person. The seclusion was a welcome relief from the craziness of dorm-life.

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