Chenghui Zhang, Ph.D., LL.M.
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas , with a specialization in law, crime, and deviance, and racial inequalities.
My research interests include bias crime, crime reporting, quantitative methods, and violence against minorities. Employing survey experiments and other quantitative methods, my research aims to understand how preexisting social contexts influence the social construction of hate crimes and reporting behaviors.
I have worked as a research assistant at the Center for Research on Violence Against Women (CRVAW) at University of Kentucky, contributing to several projects that address interpersonal violence on campus. I am also an experienced instructor for both undergraduate-level and graduate-level sociology courses in person and online.
I received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky in 2022. I also hold an LL.M. in Jurisprudence and an LL.B. from Tongji University, Shanghai, China. I am also a Chinese BAR member with good standing.
Recent Highlights
Seeds Funding
My collaborative project has received seed funding from the Creative Media, Entertainment, and Cultural Industries iRDA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This project explores how user-generated tourism content transforms the narratives about tourism diversification and branding.
William Morris Award for Excellence in Teaching 2024
I received a William Morris Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
New Publication in the Journal of Criminal Justice
My paper, Willingness to Report Hate Crimes: How Attitudes, Police Perceptions, and Sexual Orientation Shape Bystander Response has published in the Journal of Criminal Justice.
We found that more positive perceptions of the police can affect the willingness to report sexual orientation-motivated hate crimes differently across groups and may help reduce existing biases toward sexual minorities.
Research
My research seeks to understand how overarching social structure influences crime and crime reporting behaviors, with a focus on bias crime and vulnerable populations. As a quantitative researcher, I am committed to finding original, untapped data sources to address my research questions.
Teaching
At the core of my teaching philosophy is a commitment to participatory education that fosters inclusivity, critical thinking, intellectual discourse, and problem-solving skills within the complex disciplinary knowledge of sociology.
Beyond Academia
I enjoy engaging with local communities outside my office. It connects me with vulnerable populations, and offers me the opportunity to seek policy change and promote social justice.