Research Portfolio: Briana Leone

I hold a Master of Science in Criminal Justice - Behavioral Health from at St. Joseph's University. My undergraduate background is in Criminology and Sociology. My interests pertain to gentrification and crime, gentrification and community solidarity, as well as access to resources in changing neighborhood environments. Currently, I am more focused on healthy counseling practices for people with addictions. My past research involved tabulating rates of expungement in the Philadelphia area. One of the reasons I am excited about working on this project is that I believe understanding communities and their needs (be it social, be it in relation to energy) and the interconnectedness of those needs to community-resource deprivation is paramount to social justice work. As a research assistant, I hope to continue building the necessary methodological and technical tools to conduct community research, as well as ethnography. Between  March and September 2020, I served as the Energy Rights Project research co-op. During this time my research focused on collecting data and analyzing utility moratoriums across the U.S., data management for the Spring 2020 Shifting Energy Demands During COVID-19 survey, building pedagogoical resources for learning about energy vulnerability and adding scholarly literature to our archive. To learn about my other research activities with the Energy Rights Project please view my portfolio.