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Ursula Castellano received her B.A. in mass communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California, Davis. Her primary teaching and research areas are the sociology of law and organizations, with an emphasis upon sociology of the courts and legal processes, ethnography and qualitative methodologies, as well as the sociology of institutions and organizations. She is completing a book manuscript on involvement of nonprofit caseworkers in the criminal justice system.  Her current research project explores the role of treatment professionals in mental health courts and is funded by a grant from the Ohio Department of Mental Health. She has published articles in Law and Policy, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Contexts, Teaching Sociology, and Federal Probation.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. at University of California-Davis (2005)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• The Criminal Justice System
• Courts & Legal Processes
• Nonprofits & Community Organization
• Mental Health & Illness
• Organizational Theory
• Ethnography and Qualitative Methodologies

COURSES RECENTLY TAUGHT

• Soc 101: Introduction to Sociology
• Soc 365: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness
• Soc 430/530: Sociology of Organizations
• Soc 462/562: Sociology of the Courts
• Soc 609: Seminar on Law

PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS

Articles & Chapters

Castellano, Ursula. 2009. "Beyond the Courtroom Workgroup: Caseworkers as the New Satellite of Social Control." Law & Policy 31(4).

Castellano, Ursula, Joesph De Angelis, and Marisol Clark Ibanez. 2008. "Cultivating a Sociological Perspective Using Nontraditional Texts." Teaching Sociology 36(3): 240-253.

Castellano, Ursula.  2007.  “Becoming a non-expert and other strategies for managing fieldwork dilemmas in the criminal justice system.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 36(6): 704-730.

Castellano, Ursula. 2007.  “Tell your story.” Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds 6(3): 56-57.

Riker, Alissa and Ursula Castellano. 2001. “The Homeless Release Project: An Innovative Pretrial Release Option.” Federal Probation 65: 9-13.