Every little girl has a female role model, whether that be her mother, her sister, or even a grandmother. When that young woman has reached college age and she is exposed to a worldview beyond her family, she begins to admire other women for their education, their work ethic, their grace, and their appreciation for life. One such woman to admire is Dr. Jennifer Copp. She is employed as a faculty member in the College of Criminology at Florida State University.
Florida State University is the first institution Dr. Copp has been employed as a faculty member, this is her third year teaching. Her educational background includes an Undergraduate Degree in International Relations and Spanish from Ohio State University. She then moved to Spain and gained her first Master’s degree there in Gender Studies. You might think that this is impressive, it is even more so when you realize that she earned this degree while going to a university where the primary language was Spanish. That’s right, she earned her Master’s degree in a class where all assignments, lessons, and papers were written and spoken in Spanish. Just let that sink in really quickly.
When she returned to the United States she obtained her second Master’s degree in Sociology at Bowling Green State University, before finally earning her Ph.D. in Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her career found its way into the criminal justice system due to an interest which was piqued during her time in Spain. She was there in the midst of their domestic violence campaigns and became very interested in it, she worked with victims while there. Her Master’s topic was a comparative study of domestic violence between the United States and Spain and continued to work with that population when she returned to the United States. Her education and research made her notice that domestic violence was framed by other inequalities, which influenced her decision to study sociology. Now she is beginning to study other problem behaviors framed by the same inequalities, such as broken families, which evidently lead her to the criminal justice system and studying youth impacted by family members who are incarcerated.
Besides her incredible educational accomplishments, she, along with other FSU researchers, has recently been engaged in projects with the Department of Juvenile Justice and the local jail in Tallahassee in order to pursue research with these institutions. At this point, you might think, “Yeah, so this woman is incredibly intelligent.. what of it?”
Courtesy: whqr.org
In addition to being intelligent, Dr. Copp has a very warm heart and volunteers as a guardian at ad Litem. This program works with children who have been victims of abuse or neglect. During court proceedings, there is often no one to step up and declare what decision will most benefit the child, this is where guardians like Dr. Copp step in. She and others provide the non-legal representation for the child during the trial process to ensure the court makes the best decision for the child.
If you didn’t already think she was a superstar, Dr. Copp has a passion for traveling. She has traveled to many countries, which is every woman’s dream. So far, she has traveled through most of Europe, North Africa, Asia and Central America. She goes abroad consistently, her most recent trip was to Panama to what she describes as a “super remote island”, and since she was sick during the trip, she and her husband, Andres, had to island hop to get to the pharmacy. Although you would think merely traveling the world would suffice, Dr. Copp also owns a home in Spain and spends much of her time bouncing between her two residences.
Dr. Copp and her husband Andres, who she has been married to for eight years, hiking the Caminito del Rey in Malaga, Spain.
Although she loves to travel internationally, she also enjoys exploring Tallahassee. She loves the number of parks and trials that there are in town, and she loves the number of restaurants she is able to try. So far, her favorite restaurant is Sage, but she also believes there is great bar food too.
She is also passionate about maintaining her health, which is something to admire in and of itself. She does so by running often, which is an incredible feat, especially in the summer sun of Florida. Below is a picture of Dr. Copp before she ran the Tallahassee Half Marathon just last year.
If it couldn’t be any more obvious that Dr. Copp should be your primary female role model, she is also a proud dog-mom of her German Shepard, Chica, who is her constant running companion.
In addition to running and cuddling her beautiful pup, Dr. Copp also loves to listen to Spanish pop music or really cheesy Spanish ballads on her noise canceling headphones while she codes data for her research (which should be every girl’s guilty pleasure if you ask me). She is also a type A person.
If you ever want to talk to Dr. Copp, she is a wealth of knowledge and advice. She feels that if you are conflicted about your future, you should seriously consider higher education, but make sure that it is what you want to do. She firmly believes that if you only go to grad school because you aren’t sure of your next steps, that you shouldn’t do it (mostly because of the debt you accumulate and the time you waste). She encourages those of you struggling to find your path to take advantage of the resources that the university offers. She noted that grad school was one of the best choices she had ever made, but she still encourages students to be sure they are thoughtful about their decisions. She also is adamant that if students want to be involved, they should speak to their faculty. She has noticed that sometimes students are daunted by the thought of speaking to their professor and asking to do research on a topic that interests them, but they shouldn’t be.
Dr. Copp is by far one of the most interesting, kind, and accomplished women to step foot on the FSU campus. If you have the chance to meet her, you should. She is definitely role model (and #GirlBoss) material.
Her Campus FSU would like to generously thank Dr. Copp for taking time out of her busy schedule to conduct this interview. All photographs are courtesy of Dr. Copp.