UC Irvine Professor of criminology, law and society Charis E. Kubrin is known for her groundbreaking research on immigration and criminal justice reform. Kubrin initially pursued a different career path and only turned to academia in graduate school.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kubrin attended Montclair College Preparatory School (Montclair Prep) in the San Fernando Valley, where a strong passion for sports accompanied her focus on academics.
“In high school, I was pretty much kind of nerdy but also loved sports,” Kubrin told New University. “I loved school and I loved learning, but I also loved playing sports, and I played all the sports –– basketball, cross country, tennis. At some point, I did volleyball just to keep me in shape.”
Alongside school and sports, Kubrin enjoyed listening to hip-hop and rap music growing up. Her love for music still inspires her to play the drums and sing in a local choir.
“[Back then], you would sit by your radio with your tape recorder. And when a song came on that you liked, you’d hit record and play and like get it off of the radio,” Kubrin said. “I took piano lessons. I wasn’t very good, but… I liked music in general.”
Academically, Kubrin struggled with test-taking in high school, particularly on standardized tests. She scored low on the SAT, which may have contributed to a rejection from her top choice, UCLA.
Kubrin attended Smith College, a selective private women’s liberal arts college in Northampton, Mass., where she earned bachelor’s degrees in sociology and Spanish language and literature. At Smith, she played basketball and tennis and also ran track. Kubrin later earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.
“There’s not an area in sociology that doesn’t interest me. Demography interests me, political sociology, race, ethnicity, social psychology –– it’s all of interest to me,” Kubrin said.
Kubrin and her husband, Kevork N. Abazajian, were both hired as professors at UCI in 2011 and continue to teach there. Abazajian is a professor of physics and astronomy in the School of Physical Sciences.
“I applied for the job at UC Irvine. I got it,” Kubrin said. “And then in the negotiation phase, I said, ‘I have a husband, he’s a professor of physics.’ Luckily, the folks in the physics department knew him and his work … and he came out and interviewed, and we were very fortunate to both get positions at UCI.”
Kubrin has received national recognition for her research from organizations such as the American Society of Criminology and the Western Society of Criminology.
Most recently, Kubrin and her colleague Mark W. Lipsey won the Stockholm Prize in Criminology for their research disproving the claim that immigrants increase crime, showing instead that they often have lower crime rates than native-born populations and can even help reduce crime in their communities.
“There’s a lot of misperceptions and stereotypes about immigrants and the extent to which they engage in crime relative to the native born,” Kubrin said.
Established in 2005 by the Swedish government, the Stockholm Prize is often described as criminology’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Kubrin and Lipsey are set to receive the prize in June 2026.
“I was absolutely surprised; I was not expecting anything like this,” Kubrin said. “The people that have won this award in the past are unbelievable scholars and stars in the field. And so to be put in that category just feels a little unreal.”
Kubrin believes her research is the first step in helping people recognize the importance of evidence over assumptions.
“The fact that I was awarded the Stockholm Prize, given this topic at this particular moment in time in history, is not lost on me,” Kubrin said. “There’s a desire, I think, in general among academics and academic organizations and institutions to make sure research stays a key part of the conversation when we’re talking about policy — whether it’s policy about immigrants, incarceration or rehabilitation.”
Ennes Kahf is a Features Intern for the fall 2025 quarter. He can be reached at ekahf@uci.edu.
Edited by Aditya Biswas and Joshua Gonzales
