Tania Mejia-O'Donnell

Bio

Tania Mejia-O'Donnell is a Postdoc Fellow and serves as the Graduate Student Coordinator for the School of Public Affairs. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication with a concentration in Social Advocacy from Cal Poly Humboldt and a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and Criminology from SDSU. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate in Criminology at the University of Cambridge, where she is a member of the Prisons Research Centre at the Institute of Criminology. Her doctoral research focuses on the role, function, and value of correspondence and non-familial support for incarcerated individuals.

Tania has extensive experience, having worked with justice-involved individuals in various capacities, including correspondence, mindfulness, education, employment, community supervision, and pretrial services and programs. Her research interests encompass prisons, desistance, and social support. In addition to her academic and professional background, Tania brings personal experience to her work, as she is system-impacted and has penpalled with several prisoners across the nation. Tania is dedicated to her students and to advancing the field of criminology through her teaching, research, and service to the community.

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