Alana Gunn

Recipient of the 2023 Elizabeth Butler Award

Since graduating from the Crown Family School, Alana Gunn, AM/MPP ’05, PhD ’13, has devoted her career to examining how criminal legal system involvement and intersecting experiences of stigmatization shape the health and well-being of individuals, especially women. She has extensive practice and community organizing experiences working with individuals who navigate criminal legal involvement, as well as with the agencies charged with supporting their reintegration and healing processes. According to her nominator, Alana’s work with women with incarceration experiences, and their reintegration into the community “is deep and powerful to reconstructing a more humane and equitable culture.”

As Alana awaits final decision on her tenure portfolio after receiving very favorable reviews, she is poised to become one of the first Black scholars to receive tenure in the Criminology, Law and Justice department at UIC.  Such enthusiastic tenure support acknowledges how her scholarship is uncovering the way cumulative stigma and trauma shapes the health of individuals, especially women with histories of criminal legal involvement and substance use disorders. Her nominator said, “Her research and input have major implications to uncovering what it means to truly have a second chance, to move forward rehabilitated, and make a contribution.”

Alana’s commitment to social work values and leadership are further evidenced by the fellowships and awards she has received for her research, service, and teaching. Within UIC, she has received awards which include: Departmental Teacher of Year in 2021-2022, an Outstanding Research award from UIC’s Office of the Provost in 2020 as well as multiple internal research support grants. In addition to her roles at UIC, Alana serves as a Research Fellow with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a Faculty Partner at Fordham University in the Research Ethics Training Institute. Moreover, Alana’s article entitled, “Every time I tell my story I learn something new”: Voice and inclusion in research with Black women with histories of addiction”, was recognized by the British Society of Criminology (BSC) as one of eight articles published over the past 12 years that provides critical, new potential avenues of addressing crime and harm. 

Her current Robert Wood Johnson funded study is examining how experiences of hyper-surveillance and policing shape the mental health and wellness of justice-involved families in Chicago, which will help inform the consent decree currently underway in Illinois. Moreover, Alana continues her research commitment to justice-involved women as she investigates the ethics-specific implications and methodological obligations for conducting anti-oppressive research with communities navigating histories of individual and structural level trauma. As her career has progressed, Alana’s research has taken on greater depth and a critical look into how systemic harm impacts individual and community health in Chicago. This work, her nominator notes “has resounding impact on community concerns directly affecting one of the largest cities in the U.S.” Through her contributions, Alana “demonstrates remarkable and impressive commitment to research and work that seeks to improve society…. Her work speaks to the leadership she lends and collaborative mind that she has towards teaching future leaders and addressing significant social challenges we face as a society.”

As Alana begins a new professional chapter as mid-career scholar, she looks forward to expanding her reach through her work as a therapist where she is completing her certification in Dance Movement Therapy to advance her interests in the Therapeutic Arts, Healing and Justice.