Dr. Sandra Bucerius is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology in the Department of Sociology. She is a crime ethnographer and an expert consultant to community organizations and multiple levels of government. She contributes groundbreaking research on the study of criminal justice institutions, crime ethnography, immigration and crime, and building trusting community/police partnerships with newcomer communities. Bucerius deploys extensive qualitative research to reveal the intricacies of settings that are difficult both to access and understand: prisons, police organizations, and marginalized street and newcomer communities. Her work is characterized by rigorous research designed to understand criminal justice institutions and systems through the perspectives of both those who work in them and those who encounter them, particularly those marginalized by factors related to race, gender, social class, addictions, and the like, placing those encounters within broader social contexts and challenges. Bucerius is the co-founder of the University of Alberta Prison Project - Canada's largest qualitative study on life experiences in Canadian prisons.

Bucerius has published three books with Oxford University Press as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her contributions have been recognized through a number of major awards, including the 2016 UofA Martha Cook Piper Research Prize, given to two faculty members annually from across the University who are in the early stages of their careers, enjoy a reputation for original research, and show outstanding promise. She has also won a Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award (across all ranks) as well as the Faculty of Arts Research Award (Assistant Professor). She serves on her discipline's flag journal (Criminology) advisory board and is an Executive Member of the Canadian Research Network of Terrorism, Security, and Society. She is also on the advisory board for immigration related questions to the German government.