astronomy

Joan Petersilia

Joan Petersilia is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Joan Petersilia rather than just read about it. In short: Joan Ramme Petersilia (January 2, 1951 – September 23, 2019) was an American criminologist and the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, as well as the faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

Key takeaways

Joan Petersilia belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Joan Petersilia to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Joan Petersilia from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Joan Ramme Petersilia (January 2, 1951 – September 23, 2019) was an American criminologist and the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, as well as the faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

Education Petersilia received her B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in 1972 in sociology, her M.A. from Ohio State University in 1974, also in sociology, and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in criminology, law & society in 1990.

Career Petersilia began working for the RAND Corporation in 1974, and remained there until 1994. She joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1992 as a professor of criminology, law and society, and in 2005, she became the founding director of the Center on Evidence-Based Corrections there. She joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2009. She was a founding co-editor of the journal the Annual Review of Criminology.

Research Petersilia researched prisoner reentry for over three decades.

Honors, awards and positions For her research into prisoner reentry and the process of reintegrating released prisoners into society, Petersilia, along with Daniel Nagin, was awarded the 2014 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Also that year, she received an honorary Doctor of Public Policy from the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School. She also served as president of the American Society of Criminology and the Association of Criminal Justice Research in California. She was also a fellow of the American Society of Criminology and the recipient of its Vollmer Award.

Death Petersilia died on September 23, 2019, from ovarian cancer. She had retired for health reasons a year earlier.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Joan Petersilia

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Joan Petersilia claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Joan Petersilia before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Joan Petersilia ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Joan Petersilia

In research: Joan Petersilia appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Joan Petersilia in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Joan Petersilia is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 2019 deaths, American criminologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Joan Petersilia outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Joan Petersilia in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Joan Petersilia means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Joan Petersilia out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Joan Petersilia in simple terms?

Why does Joan Petersilia matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Joan Petersilia?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Joan Petersilia.