Justin L. Sola

Justin Lucas Sola, PhD

Assistant Professor at UNC–Chapel Hill, jointly appointed in Sociology and the School of Data and Information Sciences.
Email [email protected] ORCID 0000-0002-0955-1031

I research how people experience neighborhoods, the criminal justice system, gun ownership, and inequality. I use experiments, machine learning, longitudinal designs, interviews, and observations.

Teaching: sociology · criminology · computational social science · ethics in machine learning

Publications

  1. 2026
    The Disaster of Their Dreams: Sheepdogs and Restive U.S. Gun Ownership
    Justin L. Sola and Mary S. Lee
    Social Problems Advance article, spag045
  2. 2026
    InvitedReview of “Inside Data Science: Hackers and the Making of a New Profession”
    Justin L. Sola
    Social Forces Book review, soag057
  3. 2026
    Neoliberalism in Law and Society
    Justin L. Sola
    Law & Society Review FirstView: 1–33
  4. 2025
    First Impressions Matter: Mundane Obstacles to a Forensic Device for Probabilistic Reporting in Fingerprint Analysis
    Simon A. Cole and Justin L. Sola
    Social Studies of Science 55(5): 683–710
  5. 2024
    InvitedPathways to concealed gun carrying
    Justin L. Sola
    Science Advances 10(49): eadu1262 · Focus article for Lanfear et al. 2024
  6. 2024
    Firearms, Families, and Financial Distress: Economic Instability and Increased Gun Desire
    Justin L. Sola and Tara D. Warner
    Social Science Quarterly 105: 2017–2033
  7. 2024
    Partisan Differences in Hiring and Social Discrimination against Nonbinary Americans
    Justin T. Pickett, Justin L. Sola, and Shawn D. Bushway
    Socius 10: 1–5
  8. 2024
    Widespread, bipartisan aversion exists to neighbors owning AR-15s or storing guns insecurely
    Justin L. Sola and Justin T. Pickett
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(16): e2311825121
  9. 2024
    Making the Call: How Does Perceived Race Affect Desire to Call the Police?
    Justin L. Sola and Charis E. Kubrin
    2023 ASC Division of Experimental Criminology Student Paper Award
    Journal of Experimental Criminology 20(4): 1193–1223
  10. 2022
    Barred: Labor Market Dynamics and Human Capital Development Among People on Probation and Parole
    Sykes et al. and Sola
    Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 701(1): 28–45
  11. 2022
    Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Public Assistance, Monetary Sanctions, and Financial Double-Dealing in America
    Sykes et al. and Sola
    RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 8(1): 148–178
  12. 2021
    Transmitting Desire: An Experiment on a Novel Measure of Gun Desirability in a Pandemic
    Justin L. Sola
    Sociological Perspectives 65(5): 939–969

© 2026 Justin Lucas Sola