Dr. William Feyerherm received his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice Systems from the State University of New York at Albany in 1977. In addition to his faculty appointment within Criminology & Criminal Justice, Dr. Feyerherm served as Vice Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies from 1997 through 2010. His research activities focus on the role of race and culture in the processing of youth within the juvenile justice system.
Dr. Feyerherm has served as a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and the Oregon Youth Development Council, a body developed to oversee all State services for youth aged 6 through 20. He has served on a number of other advisory bodies, including the Oregon Juvenile Justice Advisory Commission, the Multnomah County Juvenile Justice Advisory Council, the Multnomah County Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, and the Oregon Law Enforcement Contacts Policy Commission (examining racial profiling in law enforcement). He has also served as a consultant to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention on issues of disproportionate minority contact. Dr. Feyerherm has also served as an expert consultant to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice on the development of cases involving patterns of disparate treatment of juveniles in juvenile court systems. In 2002, Dr. Feyerherm received the W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology for his contributions to racial and ethnic issues in criminology.