Kristina Linden, who is majoring in criminology and criminal justice and psychology at UMSL, is one of nine undergraduate students to receive a $1,000 research grant from the College of Arts and Sciences. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Kristina Linden knows that she’s pretty lucky. Returning to college for the second time, she stumbled into two areas of study that she loves, received a research grant and has the opportunity to work under one of the most outstanding criminologists in the United States.

Linden, who is majoring in criminology and criminal justice and psychology at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, was one of nine undergraduate students to receive a $1,000 research grant from UMSL’s College of Arts and Sciences in the spring.

She chose UMSL because she wanted an accredited program and nationally rated program. She then learned of the research grant and landed a spot on the research team of Richard Rosenfeld, Founders Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at UMSL.

“He’s a boss. I was totally unaware about how lucky I was to get on his team,” Linden said.

As part of the team, which also includes two doctoral students, she’s heading up local neighborhood analysis of drug arrests and looking at census data and arrest records to search out racial disparities in drug arrests in St. Louis.

According to data collected from the Uniform Crime Report, 90 percent of drug arrestees in St. Louis are African American. However, African Americans only make up 50 percent of the city’s population.

“I hope from this research to better understand the racial disparity in drug arrests in St. Louis,” said Linden, who lives in St. Louis’ Soulard neighborhood, “and maybe learn something that helps explain why African Americans are over 90 percent of arrestees.”

The study will focus on data from 20-plus offenders over the age of 18, both male and female and Caucasian and African American.

Linden will present her findings, along with the rest of the team, at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting in November.

“This grant is amazing,” she said. “It will really benefit me academically, not only to be able to put on my resume that I was a grant recipient, but to have that research experience. I feel like it’s going to make me a much more competitive PhD candidate.”