Maya Moritz

So delighted to see this Omnia article out about my current project on murals and crime + the general struggle of data collection!

@rglenner That sounds so cool! Ideas are implicitly part of our combined thesis/methods class, but students may only focus on their method given that it's 1 semester for method & thesis. Integrating it into a non-thesis class w hypothetical applications may engage students for all methods.

@mayarmoritz That is what I did when I taught a methods PhD or masters class partly based on the book. First week we talked about choosing a topic and rest of the quarter they worked through measurement, power etc wrt their specific RCT. Then presented at the end.

As I read Takavarasha & @rglenner, I notice that learning methods/knowing where to focus attention is easiest with a project in mind. I wonder if having students envision a project, even if not their thesis, at the start of a methods class would raise understanding & engagement.

Book is "Running Randomized Evaluations: A Practical Guide" by Kudzai Takavarasha and Rachel Glennerster with @JPAL and it is an awesome read. Every few pages I read send me back to my RCT plan to add some cool consideration/wrinkle I hadn't considered.

RUBBER MEETS ROAD: Street lighting is one of the oldest public safety tools cities have. What does the evidence actually say about its impact on crime? University of Pennsylvania's @AaronChalfin breaks down 50 years of research, policy and practice. vitalcitynyc.org/rubber-meets-r…

Note: Karakas T, Dumlu BN, Sarıkaya M, Yildiz Ozkan D, Demir Y, İnce G (2024), "The impact of urban graffiti with facial expressions on human behavioral and emotional experiences in a VR environment". Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 18 No. 2 pp. 409–431, doi: doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-0…

Another lit review preparation highlight: realizing that other people's perception of "negative emotions in street #art" might be more extreme than the frowning, normal faces you imagined in your head when reading the text. (from Karakas, Dumlu, Sarıkaya, Ozkan & Demir (2023)

@EileenCardillo @Anjan435 Note: Gonzalez, V. E., Li, S., Cardillo, E. R., & Chatterjee, A. (2025). Murals and Neighborhoods: The impact of public art in Philadelphia. Cities, 174, 107023. doi.org/10.1016/j.citi…

Lit review preparation can be a slog unless you get to read articles by Vicente Estrada Gonzalez Shirley Li, @EileenCardillo, & @Anjan435

2 of our amazing department members are presenting their work at the #PennGradTalks #PGT I'm so excited to see so much representation for criminological research! Watch here: lnkd.in/gNm3Qhwi Vote for your favorite in the audience choice here: lnkd.in/gbHjthQu

I was waiting for this article to mention very different cultural expectations of social interaction & loneliness, in line with happiness aligning culturally more with joy (e.g., USA) or with satisfaction (e.g., Nordics). Still fascinating! @TheEconomist economist.com/christmas-spec…

flowingdata.com/2026/01/29/pop… An awesome chart and design from @flowingdata

Joseph R. Syrnick, retired chief engineer for the Streets Department and CEO of the Schuylkill River Development Corp., has died at 79 inquirer.com/obituaries/jos… via @phillyinquirer

When Sister Helen Prejean was young, she declared that she would either grow up to be the President or the Pope. Instead, she became a nun — and later, a spiritual adviser to men on death row. Meet Sister Helen: buff.ly/mxxh4Nn

Amid citywide efforts to counteract crumbling infrastructure, professors and researchers associated with Penn’s urban planning and criminology departments spoke to The Daily Pennsylvanian about how improving urban design can decrease crime. thedp.com/a7923a70-38cd-…

Loving the coverage of research looking into the crime effects of beautifying cities!💡🎨🧹 thedp.com/article/2026/0…

Every shooting is a tragedy. The shootings at Brown and in Sydney, so close in time, just felt particularly wrenching as a Jewish person working at a university. If anyone at Penn or beyond is also struggling to process what's happened this weekend, feel free to reach out.

Study/work soundtrack of the day is Hanna by @ChemBros. Objectively very cool.

@ASC_DCS This was such an honor. Thank you to the Kimchi family and the Division on Corrections and Sentencing.

Please join us in congratulating this year's Dr. Kimchi Graduate Travel Award winners, Carl Reeds (University of South Florida) and Maya Moritz (University of Pennsylvania)!

New newsletter: THE MONKS IN THE CASINO In the last few decades, the pro-social life script for many young people—date, marry, buy a house, have a kid—has become more expensive. Meanwhile, the anti-social life script—e.g., posting, porn, parlays—has become easier, cheaper, frictionless. This has created an unusual inversion of risk. Today's young people—and young men, in particular—have become more risk averse in the physical world and more risk-seeking in the digital world. They date less, and gamble more. They find intimacy scary and betting exciting. They furnish their rooms like high-tech monasteries and gravitate toward media that works like a slot machine. I don't think young men suffer from a "loneliness crisis." I think the problem is bigger and stranger than that. They are choosing to be alone, because economics and technology have made aloneness feel easy and togetherness feels anxious. The result: A generation of monks in a casino. derekthompson.org/p/the-monks-in…