Amy Magnus, PhD

Dr. Amy Magnus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice. Dr. Magnus also serves as Chico State's Director for the Office of Civic Engagement(opens in new window), the Vice Chair of Chico State's Academic Senate, and as a board member for the Butte Defense Equity Project (BDEP). She earned her Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine with emphases in Law, Society, and Culture and Race and Justice. She also has a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with minors in Philosophy and Criminal Justice from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Dr. Magnus is a community engaged teacher-scholar-activist whose interests center philosophies of justice and activism, the politics of social inequality and trajectories toward equity, access to justice, the relationship between law, society, and culture, and rurality. She also conducts educational research, with a focus on examining how students experience their education, successful strategies for mentoring and training student researchers, and understanding the impacts of higher education structures on students' identities, civic and community engagement, career paths, and connection to place. This work is performed with the goal of improving support, resources, and advocacy for students. Her research and teaching philosophies center a critical and feminist lens. She is a mixed methodological researcher with heavy emphasis on conducting survey, ethnographic, qualitative, place-based, action-oriented, and arts-based methodologies (such as Photovoice). She is currently working on a book entitled: "Uphill Battle: The Politics of Rural Inequality and Social Justice."

Her dissertation research examined the politics of rural inequality, social vulnerability, and grassroots activism. She conducted a one-year ethnographic, community-based, action-oriented research project that leveraged arts-based visual ethnography in the form of photography to better understand the lived experience and interface of rurality, vulnerability, access to resources, and community activism. Her current work builds on this project, centering access to rural healthcare, the policing, surveillance, and social control of healthcare services, and rural politics and activism.

While at Chico State, she has been awarded Chico State's Early Career Faculty Award, the Office of Civic Engagement's Early Career Community Engagement Award, and The National Society of Leadership and Success 2021 Inspiring Our Future Leaders Award.

Before arriving at Chico State in 2020, Dr. Magnus was a UC Irvine School of Law Initiative to End Family Violence Research Fellow, a Dickman Award Recipient for Dissertation Research, a 3-time UC Irvine Kugelman Citizen Peacebuilding Research Fellow, and a UC Irvine Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation Pedagogical Fellow.

Outside of her work, she enjoys being a mom, cooking, painting, and gardening!

Select recent publications:

• Gaby, S. and Amy Magnus. (2024). Teen Courts as Alternative Justice? Teens’ Carceral Habitus and the Reproduction of Social Inequality. Critical Criminology, 32, 41-59.
• Magnus, A. (2023). Trying to Avoid Coyotes: The Nexus of Rurality, Domestic Violence, and Social Inequality. In Tales Untold: Understanding Gender-based Violence and Rurality in the 21st Century. Bristol University Press.
• Magnus, A. and Kristen Rai*. (2023). Doing Rural Community-Based Action Research: Community Perceptions and Methodological Impacts. Qualitative Research, 1-21.
• Magnus, A., Patrick Newell, Heidi Mendenhall, and Ildefonso Ponce*. (2023). Rural Access to Health Information: Training Community Health Navigators in Northern California to Expand Access to Virtual Health Information Tools.  National Library of Medicine (NNLM) Grant Report; Community / Research Report on Findings from Ongoing Research.
• Magnus, A., Susan Coutin, and Frances Leslie. (2023). Doing Diversity Work in Higher Education: Systemic Inequality, Institutional Change, and Campus Attitudes. Equity in Education & Society, 1-16.
• Williams, K., Kasey Ragan, Amy Magnus, and Veronica Gonzalez. (2023). Death Under Review: Differentiating Lethal and Nonlethal Intimate Partner Violence. In Taking Stock of Homicide: Trends, Emerging Themes, and the Challenges. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
• Magnus, A. and Alyse Sherrick*. (2022). Saviors and Services: The Interface of Neoliberal Deprivation, Hegemonic Christianity, Social Exclusion, and Rural Church Resource Provision. Rural Sociology, 1-27.
• Goddard, T. and Amy Magnus. (2022). Bridging Urban-Rural Grassroots Activism: Activist Criminology in Support of Unified Struggles for Social Change and Social Justice. International Handbook of Activist Criminology. Emerald Publishing.
• Magnus, A. and Patricia Advincula. (2021). Those Who Go Without: An Ethnographic Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Rural Mental Health and Healthcare Infrastructure. Journal of Rural Studies, 83, 37-49.
• Magnus, A. & Donohue, F. (2021). Access to Justice Through the Eyes of Rural Domestic Violence Survivors. Theoretical Criminology, 1-22.