Katheryn Russell-Brown is the Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law and Director of the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law.  Professor Russell-Brown received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, her law degree from the University of California, Hastings and her Ph.D. in criminology from the University of Maryland.

Prior to joining the University of Florida law faculty in 2003, Professor Russell-Brown taught in the Criminology and Criminal Justice department at the University of Maryland for 11 years.  She has been a visiting law professor at American University and the City University of New York (CUNY).  She has been a lecturer at Howard University and 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).

Professor Russell-Brown’s books include The Color of Crime, 3d ed (2021), Criminal Law (2015), Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime and African Americans (2006), and Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires (2004).

She has written several children’s picture books, including Little Melba and Her Big Trombone (2014), A Voice Named Aretha (2020), and She Was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (2020), for which she received a 2021 NAACP Image Award. Her fourth book, She Persisted: Marian Anderson will be published in June 2022.