Michelle L. Malkin, JD, PhD, is the Director of the Gambling Research and Policy Initiative (GRPI) and an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at East Carolina University. Dr. Malkin's research interests include a focus on gambling-related harms, gambling-motivated crime, and the gambling prevalence, behavior, and risk of under-researched populations. She was awarded the 2022 Dr. Durand Jacobs Dissertation Award and the 2024 Denise Phillips Community Outreach and Multicultural Wellness Award from the National Council on Problem Gambling. She also was awarded the 2024 ECU Early Trendsetter Award, 2025 Harriot College of Arts & Sciences Dean's Early Career Award, 2025 Chair's Award for Excellence in Research, and an ECU Innovator of the Month Award for her creation and copyright of the Gambling-Motivated Crime Diversion Checklist.