René Tuma is a sociologist and researcher in the 'Turning Violent' project at Universiteit Leiden, where he focuses on police–civilian interactions. He is a PI of the research project Visions of Policing at Technische Universität Berlin, funded by the Open Research Area for the Social Sciences. He has held visiting professorships at Technische Universität Berlin (2025) and the University of Vienna (2024). His research focuses on interpretive and qualitative methods, sociological theory, interaction, visuality, technology, and violence. He received his Dr. phil. in Sociology from Technische Universität Berlin in 2014.