First African American woman to lead an academic department named

Having grown up in a world of international terrorism and cyber threats, many of today's students want a criminal justice degree. The Citadel responded to this growing interest by breaking out the criminal justice program from its previous home with political science to focus on developing homeland security, intelligence and related studies. At the helm of this new endeavor is Martha Hurley, Ph.D., who is the first African American woman to head an academic department at The Citadel.

Hurley, who received her doctorate in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati in 2000, has more than 10 years of experience working in the field. Specific areas of her research experience include risk assessment and classification, analysis of performance measures, organizational change and implementation of "best practices" in corrections.

Hurley has authored 16 articles and two books, including "Correctional Administration and Change Management," which was released in 2010. She has also worked as a senior researcher for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and served as a research analyst and facilitator of group sessions in a community-based juvenile program. She has conducted presentations and published articles in the areas of evidence-based practice, organizational change, correctional attitudes, risk and needs assessment, and program implementation.