Next on our IBS Grad Spotlight list is Luke Novack! Novack earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from CU Boulder in May. During his time as a graduate student, he was actively involved in both the Population Program and the Prevention Science Program.
Novack coordinated two interdisciplinary research groups at IBS: the Population Health Workshop (in collaboration with Ryan Masters and Amanda Stevenson) and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Working Group (with David Pyrooz and Jillian Turanovic). His research interests include life course criminology, substance use and misuse, and health.
IBS impacted Novack’s career by providing consistent mentorship for two of his major projects. One project explored the impact of age on illicit substance use. The other, which was his dissertation, examined the relationship between drug and alcohol dependence and changes in offending over time. Novack’s dissertation also received a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Department of Sociology at CU Boulder.
“I’m most proud of my dissertation project. It was by far the longest and most intense project I’ve been part of. It’s where I really learned the most and where everything I studied in the classroom finally came together.” – Luke Novack
Novack credits David Pyrooz for providing consistent guidance from the very start of his graduate journey. He also highlights Jillian Turanovic as a key driver of his academic and professional growth. During his earlier focus on population health, Ryan Masters and Amanda Stevenson played important mentoring roles.
Before coming to CU Boulder, Novack earned his B.S. in Sociology and Biological Sciences from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he served as an undergraduate teaching and research assistant. He also held roles in research evaluation and community health projects and was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Delta International Sociology Honor Society in 2018. In 2019, he co-authored a peer-reviewed article in Journal of Drug Issues: “Injection Opioid and Injection Methamphetamine Use in the Rural United States: A Systematic Review and Network Analysis.”
This August, Novack will join Northwest Missouri State University as an Assistant Professor of Criminology. We’re excited to see how Luke continues to grow his research and make an impact in the field of criminology!