In 2025, Katheryn Russell-Brown was named the Brooks Trustee Professor of Crime, Law and Justice at Northeastern University.  Professor Russell-Brown received her undergraduate degree from the UC Berkeley, her law degree from UC Hastings, and her Ph.D. in criminology from the University of Maryland. 

Prior to joining the Northeastern University faculty, Professor Russell-Brown taught at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law (2003-2024).  From 1992 to 2003, she taught in the Criminology and Criminal Justice department at the University of Maryland.  Her first teaching position was at Alabama State University.

Professor Russell-Brown teaches, researches, and writes on issues of race and crime and the sociology of law.  Her article, “The Constitutionality of Jury Override in Alabama Death Penalty Cases,” was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Alabama (1995) (dissent). 

Professor Russell-Brown’s books include The Color of Crime, 3d ed (2021), Criminal Law, 2d ed. (with co-author Angela J. Davis) (2025 forthcoming), Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime and African Americans (2006), and Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires (2004).   

She has written several children’s books, including Little Melba and Her Big Trombone (2014), A Voice Named Aretha (2020), She Was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (2020), which received a 2021 NAACP Image Award, She Persisted: Marian Anderson (2022), and her latest one, JUSTICE RISING: 12 Amazing Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement (2023).