Mary Koss, PhD, is a Regents’ Professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. She published the first national study sexual assault among college students in 1987, which is the subject of the book, I Never Called it Rape (1988, 2019). In 2021 she published a 30-year prevalence comparison in new national data. She was the principal investigator of the RESTORE Program; the first restorative justice program for sex crimes among adults that was quantitatively evaluated. She has developed resources for campus use including ARC3 Campus Climate Survey and the STARRSA model for rehabilitation of those responsible for sexual misconduct. Her ongoing work evaluates a sexual assault bystander prevention program focusing on staff of alcohol serving establishments (Safer Bars). Her credentials document close to 300 publications. Her policy interests are in documenting the mismatch between victims’ perceived post-assault needs and what policy makers envision providing moving forward. Informed by victim voice, she advocates for a wellness agenda with non-adversarial, restorative models of justice as just one post-assault service that victims may choose, thereby offering a choice from traditional criminal legal services that have abysmally failed to produce results despite of $58 billion spent since 1994 to improve them. Dr. Koss testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee then chaired by Senator Joe Biden prior to the 1994 passage of the first Violence Against Women Act. She was the 8th recipient of the Visionary Award from End Violence Against Women International. She has received awards from the American Psychological Association for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy (2000) and for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology (2017). She was the 2019 recipient of the Society for Feminist Psychology award for career contributions. She is included as a significant feminist voice in the history of psychology History of Feminist Psychology https://feministvoices.com/profiles/mary-koss Her 2018 op-ed on differentiating sexual abuse, sexual assault and sexual harassment that appeared in The Conversation has received more than a million views. 
Websites:  https://publichealth.arizona.edu/directory/mary-koss

Educational Background

University of Michigan, AB with high distinction, Psychology

University of Minnesota, PhD, Clinical Psychology, Arizona licensed psychologist #1422

Expertise

Epidemiology of violence, with emphasis on measuring violence against women, sexual assault victim’s justice and healing needs, violence prevention programs, program evaluation, and public policy focusing on violence against women and restorative justice. 

Selected Publications

• Koss, M. P. (2014). The RESTORE Program of Restorative Justice for Sex Crimes Vision, Process, and Outcomes. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29, 1623-1660. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260513511537
• Swartout, K. M., Koss, M. P., White, J. W., Thompson, M. P., Abbey, A., & Bellis, A. L. (2015). Trajectory analysis of the campus serial rapist assumption. JAMA pediatrics, 169(12), 1148-1154. Scholarly Reviewed: Journal of Pediatrics and also New England Journal of Medicine (Journal Watch – Summary and Comment) DOI: https://doi/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0707
• Lamade, R.V., Lopez, E.C., Koss, M.P., Prentky, R.A., & Brereton, A. (2018). Developing and implementing a treatment intervention for college students found responsible for sexual misconduct. Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research. https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-06-2017-0301
• Koss, M.P., White, J.W., & Lopez, E.C. (2017). Victim voice in re-envisioning responses to sexual and physical violence nationally and internationally. American Psychologist, 72, 1019-1030. http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000233
• Anderson, E. J., Krause, K. C., Meyer Krause, C., Welter, A., McClelland, D. J., Garcia, D. O., ... & Koss, M. P. (2019). Web-based and mHealth interventions for intimate partner violence victimization prevention: a systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, https://doi/1524838019888889
• Malamuth et al., (2021) Factors Predictive of Sexual Misbehavior: Testing the Four Pillars of the Confluence Model in a Large Diverse Sample of College Men, Aggressive Behavior https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21960
• Koss et al., (2021) Then and Now: The scope of rape victimization and perpetration among national samples of college students across 30 years (Journal of Interpersonal Violence, in press)

Podcasts

• A Quest for Justice http://wavemaker.podbean.com/e/a-quest-forjustice%C2%A0stories-from-sexual-harassment%E2%80%99s-front-lines/
• How Alcohol and Sexual Violence Meet Up On Campus During a Pandemic (2021) National Sexual Violence Resource Center (2021) Part 1: https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/how-alcohol-and-sexual-violence-meet-campusduring-pandemic-part-1 Part 2: https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/how-alcohol-andsexual-violence-meet-campus-during-pandemic-part-2
• Experience from Practicing Restorative Justice for Sexual Harm: Trauma, Justice Needs, Participant Satisfaction, Equity Law and and the Future South Carolina Restorative Justice Initiative, University of South Carolina School of Law (2021). https://youtu.be/apTShtlJ7lo