April M. Zeoli

Dr. Zeoli is interested in the impact of state-level firearm safety laws on interpersonal firearm violence and the implementation of those policies at the local level. Her interdisciplinary research—which aims to bring together the fields of public health, criminology, and criminal justice—is focused on firearm policies that restrict high-risk individuals from purchase and possession of guns and those that facilitate the implementation of firearm restriction policies. Much of Dr. Zeoli’s research has focused on domestic violence-related firearm restrictions, such as laws that require or allow firearm restrictions on domestic violence restraining orders, and whether these laws are associated with reductions in intimate partner homicide. She is also interested in how local courts and law enforcement implement the restrictions to ensure that an individual who is newly prohibited from having a firearm does not have a firearm. Dr. Zeoli is also interested in extreme risk protection orders (or “red flag laws”), their impact on firearm violence, including suicide, and the implementation and enforcement of these orders. The goals of her research are to provide evidence on whether and how firearm safety policies reduce firearm violence and to improve the implementation of these laws through science.