Maria Rendon is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, and she has recently written a book titled Stagnant Dreamers that describes the challenges they face coming of age in the inner city and accessing higher education and good jobs and demonstrates how family-based social ties and community institutions can serve as buffers against neighborhood violence, chronic poverty, incarceration, and other negative outcomes.

Charis Elizabeth Kubrin is an American criminologist and Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Kubrin's research focuses on, among other topics, the relationship between race, violence, and social disorganization theory. She has also researched the perception of rap music as violent and dangerous, as well as whether a rapper's music can be used as evidence against him in a court of law