Dr Samuel Singler

Biography

Samuel's research is situated within the fields of Border Criminology and digital criminology, and focuses on the relationship between novel surveillance technologies, criminal justice, and border control. His empirical work illuminates how and why security devices diffuse across and through borders, how they shape contemporary ‘crimmigration’ policies, and how they are deployed and contested on the ground. He has also made theoretical contributions to the study of technology from a criminological perspective, examining how new and future digital tools reshape public surveillance and policing practices. His research situates the development of surveillance technologies against the background of postcolonial hierarchies, with the aim of contributing to the decolonization and Southernization of criminology. He is the author of Outsourcing Crimigration Control: Digital Borders, the IOM, and Biometric Statehood (Oxford University Press, 2025). Since 2020, Samuel has acted as an Associate Director of the Border Criminologies network and co-lead of its Technology & Digital Futures thematic group. He holds a DPhil in Criminology and MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. Prior to taking up his current position, he worked as a Departmental Lecturer in Criminology at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. He will be a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy at the University of Helsinki in 2026, and has also worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Law and the University of Roehampton. Outside of academia, Samuel has been employed as an independent border management consultant for the IOM, and has research experience from organizations such as RAND Europe and the Cambridge University Forum on Geopolitics. In 2022, he contributed to a report on the use of biometric technologies in the humanitarian sector published by The Engine Room.

Qualifications

• DPhil in Criminology University of Oxford,

• MPhil in International Relations University of Oxford,

• BA in International Relations Queen Mary University of London,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Criminology degrees coordinator, University of Essex (1/9/2023 - present)

• Director of Admissions, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Essex (1/9/2024 - present)

Other academic

• Research Associate, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford (19/6/2023 - present)