Dr. Michael Musheno
Professor and Advisor
Office: HSS 333
Phone: (415) 602-1239
Fax: (415) 405-0771
Email: mmusheno@sfsu.edu
Biography
Michael Musheno is currently a Professor of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University, and Distinguished Affiliated Scholar, Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California at Berkeley.
Michael grew up in an extended family in Central Pennsylvania, moving between the family house in South Williamsport and the family farm along the banks of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. He stayed in Central PA for his college education, attending Lycoming College where he earned his BA in Political Science with honors. While in College, he worked summer jobs in a local steel mill and as a groundskeeper at the World Little League Headquarters in his home town. In his junior year, he received a summer internship in Washington, D.C. to work for the United States Congressman representing Central PA and attended the Washington Semester Program, a government in action program offered by The American University.
He went on to graduate school at The American University in Washington, D.C. earning an MA and Ph.D., both in Government. During this time, he lived on a communal farm in Maryland, became an activist in the anti-war movement, and served as a staffer to the presidential campaign of George McGovern. After completing his Ph.D. at the age of 26, he moved to New York City where he began his career as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He remained an activist, working with students to form a Public Interest Research Group at the College as part of a larger movement to engage students in their communities and spearheaded by Ralph Nader.
After a short stay at the University of Minnesota, he moved to the west where he became an avid backpacker and professor at Arizona State University. He was promoted to full Professor at the age of 35 and stayed at ASU for 25 years, heading up the School of Justice and Social Policy in its formative years, co-founding the HIV Studies Network, the university group that introduced HIV 101 across the curriculum, and directed the Center for Urban Inquiry. He took leaves to Yale University when he won a mid-career Bush Fellowship to study Law and Psychology, the National Science Foundation where he served as Program Director for Law and Society, and the University of Kansas where he served as Research Director at the Institute for Policy and Social Research. He spent a nostalgic year in 2003-04 as a visiting professor at his undergraduate alma mater, Lycoming College. He assumed his current positions in the Bay Area in 2004.
He lives in Tempe, Arizona and Berkeley, California with Birgit Vencill Musheno, a nationally-recognized life sciences high school teacher and his daughter, Micah, a cellist and honors student in her last year of middle school.
