Dale Willits, Co-PI

Dr. Willits is one of the Co-Investigators for the Complex Social Interactions (CSI) Lab. Utilizing methods likes regression analysis, GIS and spatial analysis, social network analysis, text-mining, and qualitative comparative analysis Dr. Willits examines and researches subjects that include police organizational structure, policing outcomes, and policing data, and the relationship between place and crime. Before becoming a part of the CSI lab, his research has been funded by National Institute of Justice, the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission, and through internal grants at Washington State University. He has been published in Crime & Delinquency, Homicide Studies, Youth & Society, and Policing and Society. Dr. Willits’s work in the CSI Lab includes being actively engaged in developing the coding protocol and data management processes for the backend functions of the lab, composing several academic papers for publication, and securing future funding for the lab, as well as conducting data analysis. Dr. Willits received his PhD in Sociology from the University of New Mexico. His interest in research of this nature comes from pursuits in data quality to create policing, violence, and criminological theory.