Assistant Professor

Reforming the Criminal Justice System to Improve the Human Condition and Strengthen Urban Communities.


Mass incarceration in the Unites States exacts enormous human and economic tolls, particularly in disadvantaged urban communities. My long-term goal is to contribute to the grand challenge of smart decarceration through my research, teaching, and service.


I have a varied scientific background having conducted neurological clinical trial research and ethnographic research concerning health, mental health, and well-being. I completed my doctoral training at the University of Michigan’s joint social science and social work program specializing in medical anthropology and clinical social work. My commitment to multidisciplinarity, social critique and social justice, and the interconnectedness of individual well-being and experience with policies, practices and institutions has steered my research trajectory. My dissertation research was a critical qualitative study of the Toronto mental health court. From this work, 3 streams of research emerged: reducing incarceration through innovation; promoting public safety in a more socially just way, and; ameliorating disparities in the criminal justice system.


  • Ph.D. Social Work and Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2013
  • MSW, Clinical (Mental Health), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2010
  • B.A., Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada, 2004
  • B.A., Art History and Classical Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada, 1994

Link to Research Profile
E-Mail: annenordberg@uta.edu

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