Danielle is an American socio-legal researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University. Her academic work explores the intersections of law and society, memory studies, and the sociology of human rights, focusing heavily on memory laws, international law norms, and the comparative memorialization of historical atrocities. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Grand Valley State University, a Master’s degree in Human Rights from University College London (UCL), and a Master of Arts in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University (NYU).
Before advancing her doctoral research, Lucksted worked full-time in intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention, building prevention curricula and coordinating community education programs. At Stony Brook, she serves as an instructor of record and acts as the student representative for the Sociology of Human Rights section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Her current dissertation project investigates the legal framing of collective memory in dialogue with global democratic norms. Furthermore, her interdisciplinary projects analyze how autocratizing regimes weaponize collective memory and legal structures—contributing directly to contemporary scholarly networks examining democratic backsliding and autocratic legalism alongside groups like the Global Law Observatory and collaborative projects studying illiberal legalities.