News Release

Criminal Justice grad earns prestigious award

June 29, 2009

Joongyeup Lee has come a long way from his home in South Korea – both geographically and academically.

Lee, who earned a degree in economics in his native country, came to Penn State Harrisburg in 2006 for a change in careers, enrolling in the master’s degree program in Criminal Justice and graduating in 2008.

Upon graduation, he earned a full scholarship to the doctoral program in criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He has just completed his first year of doctoral studies and was named the winner of the prestigious Rolando del Carmen Award for Academic Excellence by the university.

As a student at Penn State Harrisburg, Lee amassed an impressive record as a scholar, earning the Outstanding Graduate Student in Criminal Justice Award while his research paper on drug profiling in the Louisiana justice system won first prize in the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Justice Educators Graduate Student Paper Contest.

Lee’s adviser at Penn State Harrisburg, Associate Professor James Ruiz, reflects, “Lee was one of the most promising graduate students I have ever had the privilege of working with. I had data I had gathered years ago on racial profiling that was still very raw and needed analysis. He worked with that data and used it for his master’s thesis. He has a very bright future as a teacher and a researcher.”

Ruiz continues, “Lee has been appointed to the to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences 2010 Program Committee by its first vice president. That he would receive this appointment as a first-year Ph.D. student is, as far as I know, very rare. Such appointments have been traditionally reserved for experienced faculty members.”

This summer, Lee is assigned to the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas, where he is assisting a Sam Houston State faculty member in his research.