Melissa Stacer is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice program at the University of Southern Indiana. Her teaching and research interests include corrections, specifically institutional corrections such as jails and prisons. Her additional research interests include justice-involved veterans, prison culture, prisoner misconduct, reentry, collateral consequences of incarceration and criminal justice education. She has published research in journals such as the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Victims and Offenders, Crime & Delinquency, the Prison Journal, the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation and the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. Stacer teaches courses on corrections, prisons, the death penalty, the effects of incarceration, community corrections and criminological theory. She also teaches graduate courses in research methods, prisons in America, ethics in criminal justice, criminal justice policy and practice and statistics. She is currently the President of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences through October 2025.