Professor Joseph F. Spillane received his Ph.D. in 1994 in History from Carnegie Mellon University, his M.A. in 1989 from Carnegie Mellon University, and his B.A. in 1988 from Gettysburg College. He joined the University of Florida Department of History in 1995 after teaching at Indiana University-Bloomington. He has published Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and Coxsackie: The Life and Death of Prison Reform (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). He has also co-authored A History of Modern Criminal Justice (Sage, 2013), co-edited Federal Drug Control: The Evolution of Policy and Practice (Haworth Press, 2004) and co-edited Prison Work: A Tale of Thirty Years in the California Department of Corrections (Ohio State University Press, 2005). Recent articles have appeared in Rethinking History, Diplomatic History, and the American Journal of Criminal Justice. He is currently a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Committee, Public Health Consequences of Changes in the Cannabis Policy Landscape.
From 2012 to 2022, Dr. Spillane served as Associate Dean for Student Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Academic Advising Center.
Dr. Spillane is currently Chair of the Department of History, a position he previously held from 2006-2010.
Other ongoing research interests include the development of drug addiction research, and police practice relative to illicit markets. Dr. Spillane is past president of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, a former Managing Editor of the Points blog, and a current member of the Points Editorial Advisory Board. Dr. Spillane was also for a number of years a faculty member of the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society at the University of Florida.