Nik Roberts, PhD

Nikolas C. Roberts, Ph.D., is a tenured Associate Professor of Criminology and Conflict Resolution at Pennsylvania Western University and Director of the University's Institutional Review Board.

Drawing from criminology, educational psychology, sociology, and conflict analysis, his interdisciplinary scholarship examines socialization and human behavior in justice systems and other institutional settings, with particular attention to identity, power, conflict, and individual transformation. A central strand of his work considers how highly structured environments shape behavior, identity, authority relationships, and responses to institutional expectations. His research has focused particularly on military and correctional settings, institutional socialization, and social control. His broader interests include criminal psychology, correctional systems, qualitative research methodologies, institutional behavior, and systemic error and organizational failure—including the use of sentinel event review and root cause analysis to examine wrongful convictions and other adverse system outcomes.

Dr. Roberts is an Army National Guard veteran and previously worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. He has edited three textbooks, Justice by the Numbers (2025), Crimescapes: Surveying Criminology from Classic Theory to Evolving Trends (2026), and The Law Behind the Wall (2027), contributing original chapters to each. He is also lead editor of a forthcoming volume on qualitative research methods under contract with IGI Global. At PennWest, his teaching includes Research Methods, Advanced Criminological Theory, Correctional Systems, White-Collar Crime, Violence and the Media, and Introduction to Leadership Studies. He has also served as chair, methodologist, and reader on numerous doctoral projects, including DCJ portfolios and Ph.D. dissertations in criminal justice, public policy, and psychology.

His interdisciplinary perspective was shaped in part by his academic relationship with the late social psychologist Dr. Marc Pilisuk, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis. Roberts worked with Pilisuk and Michael N. Nagler on the development of Peace Movements Worldwide (Praeger, 2010), later co-taught the graduate course Globalism and Power with Pilisuk at Saybrook University, and completed his dissertation under Pilisuk’s direction.

At PennWest, Dr. Roberts has served on the University’s Executive Council and on university committees addressing program review, curriculum, and professional development, as well as in leadership roles involving faculty promotion and tenure review. He is active in the American Society of Criminology and the Midwest Political Science Association and has participated in professional conferences as a presenter, discussant, and panel chair.

Education

• • Ph.D., Social Science, with a Graduate Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution, Saybrook University
  • M.Ed., Educational Psychology, Pennsylvania Western University
  • M.A., Criminology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  • M.S., Law and Public Policy, California University of Pennsylvania