Jennifer Carlson, PhD, a 2022 MacArthur Fellow, researches gun politics, culture and trauma in the United States. She writes on the politics of guns in American life. She is the author of three books—Citizen-Protectors (Oxford),  Policing the Second Amendment (Princeton), and Merchants of the Right (Princeton)—and has published widely in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Social Forces and Gender & Society. She is a frequent contributor to leading news outlets such as PBS, the New York Times, NPR, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. She is currently conducting National Science Foundation-funded research on gun violence survivors. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.