2025 JIRN Virtual Conference Bios
Michelle Beck
Director
Criminal Justice Analysis Center (CJAC)
North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission
As Director of North Carolina’s Statistical Analysis Center, Michelle Beck manages all data-driven research and analysis projects on criminal justice. This includes publications and the development of the Justice Data Portal that launched in March 2022, to provide publicly available data at the state and county level. Ms. Beck has 28 years of experience working in research and program evaluation utilizing various quantitative and qualitative data collection and data analysis methodologies with knowledge of evidence-based practices. She has served on key criminal justice advisory taskforces and worked in multiple state agencies – Program Evaluation Division, NC General Assembly; State Center for Health Statistics; Department of Correction; Labor and Economic Analysis Division, NC Commerce; and Administrative Analysis, Department of Public Safety. Ms. Beck received her undergraduate degree and Master of Science in Sociology from N.C. State University.
Julia Bergeron-Smith
Director
Maine Statistical Analysis Center
& Policy Associate, Justice Policy Program, Catherine Cutler Institute
Julia became Director of the Maine SAC in 2024, bringing over a decade of experience in applied research, program evaluation, and project management. She has led local, state, and national initiatives centered on justice policy, child welfare, and community well-being. With a strong background in evaluation design and implementation, Julia helps organizations turn data into strategic action through stakeholder engagement, organizational assessments, and evidence-based decision-making. She has been a Policy Associate with the Cutler Institute since 2013 and previously worked at non-profits serving at-risk youth and young adults.
Elzie Burgher
Executive Director of the Office of Support Services
Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice
Elzie Burgher is the Executive Director of the Office of Support Services for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice. As Executive Director, he ensures the department meets all statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements while providing education, evidence-based practices, and training support to the department’s employees. Prior to joining the department, Elzie served as the Deputy Budget Director, Budget Director, Chief Financial Officer, Contracting Officer, Grants Program Manager, Acting Grants Budget Manager of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, and Executive Director of the Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center within the cabinet. Prior to joining the Cabinet, Elzie worked as a consultant for Whitney, Bradley, and Brown (now Serco) and served as a Logistics Officer in the United States Marine Corps. He currently serves as a Multifunctional Logistics Officer in the Kentucky Army National Guard. He graduated from Saint Catherine College with an Associate of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences and with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Eastern Kentucky University.
Lena Dechert
Assistant Research Scientist
Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center
Lena Dechert, MPA, is a Research Scientist at the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming, where she has worked for the past six years. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in criminal justice from the University of Wyoming. Her research focuses on criminal justice issues, with particular expertise in domestic violence and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIP). Lena employs mixed-methods approaches, integrating both qualitative and quantitative analysis, to produce actionable insights that inform policy and practice. She is also committed to science communication, working to ensure research findings are accessible to policymakers, practitioners, and the public.
Sarah Fineran
Research Director
Iowa Department of Corrections
Sarah Fineran currently serves as the Research Director for the Iowa Department of Corrections. Ms. Fineran has oversight of the Department’s Research & Analytics team which performs a series of functions including data system oversight, data analytics, policy analysis, fiscal analysis, program evaluation, and forecasting. Recently the Research team has expanded their reach into analytical visualization and predictive analytics to better equip the field with technological tools to promote community and institutional safety. In addition to her work at the DOC, Fineran also serves as an adjunct professor of Sociology at two local Iowa colleges. Ms. Fineran has over seventeen years of work experience in social and behavioral research. She attained her bachelor’s at Iowa State University (ISU) majoring in Psychology, Sociology, and Criminal Justice and received her Master of Criminology at the University of Northern Iowa.
Stephen Haas, Ph.D.
Vice President
Justice Information Resource Network
Dr. Stephen M. Haas has more than 30 years of experience in project management, program implementation and evaluation, survey research, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. He has served as principal investigator for multiple national and state level research mixed-methods research studies involving the collection and analysis of large-scale administrative records, general population, practitioner, grantee, and vulnerable population survey data, and focus group and interview responses. His peer‐reviewed works include studies published in journals such as Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, American Behavioral Scientist, Victims and Offenders, Justice Research and Policy, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, the International Journal of Instructional Media, Perspectives, and the American Correctional Association’s Corrections Compendium. He currently serves as project director and principal investigator for the State of Oregon’s Crime Victimization Survey (OCVS II), survey methodologist for the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Survey of Victim Service Providers (NSVSP) and recently completed a 5-year evaluation of DC’s Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants Show Up, Stand Out (SUSO) Truancy Reduction Program as the project director and principal investigator. He has a B.A. in psychology and political science from The Ohio State University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati.
Christopher Henning, PhD
Senior Research Analyst
Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis
Wisconsin Department of Justice
Christopher has been a senior research analyst with the Wisconsin SAC at the Wisconsin Department of Justice since June of 2016. During that time, he has been the principal investigator on several criminal justice research and data collection projects. He has extensive experience working with a variety of complex administrative data sets including, the Wisconsin Centralized Criminal History Repository (CCH), Wisconsin Circuit Court data, and data from the Wisconsin Incident Based Report System (WIBRS). This work also includes building a data warehouse, working with statistical models, and building interactive dashboards with BI tools. Christopher holds a PhD and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh and a BA from Lawrence University.
Briana Irwin
MSAC Statistical Analyst
Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy
Briana Irwin is a Statistical Analyst with the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy (GOCPP). She joined GOCPP in January 2023 within the Maryland Statistical Analysis Center and provides data analysis and visualization support to the office. Ms. Irwin manages and completes federally funded projects aimed at developing resources on select topics, such as human trafficking, adverse childhood experiences, and police training and recruitment practices, that explore each topic throughout Maryland. In previous positions, she conducted research on serial offenses and assisted on projects focused on criminal justice, legal decision-making, and law enforcement. Ms. Irwin graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a Master of Arts degree in forensic psychology in January 2023, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in criminology, criminal justice, and psychology from the University of Maryland.
Rich Kluckow, DSW
Prisons Corrections Statistics Unit
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Rich Kluckow is chief of the Prisons Corrections Statistics Unit at the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This team is responsible for data collections on correctional populations in the United States including the National Prisoners Statistics Program, Census of Correctional Facilities, and the Survey of Prison Inmates. Prior to working at BJS, Dr. Kluckow managed research at the Colorado Department of Corrections. Rich holds a master’s degree in sociology from Colorado State University and a doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California.
Jed Knode
Graduate Research Fellow
Michigan Justice Statistics Center
School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University
Jed is a 4th-year doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the evaluation and reduction of institutional inequalities and reducing the barriers between practitioners and research to improve evidence-driven policy. His work appears in the journals Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Criminology & Public Policy. He currently serves as a graduate research fellow at the Michigan Statistical Analysis Center. Jed graduated from Colorado State University in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He is currently managing growing over 40 varieties of peppers (too much by any stretch of the imagination), running a D&D game set in the Victorian era, and spending any remaining time with his far cooler spouse and daughter.
Sarah Manchak, PhD
Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research
University of Cincinnati School of Criminal Justice
Sarah M. Manchak is an Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Behavior with concentrations in experimental psychopathology and psychology and the law from the University of California, Irvine in 2011. Prior to that, she earned her MA in forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her work seeks to inform prevention and intervention for people with mental illness and/or substance use disorder who are justice system involved.
Todd Minton
Chief of the Jails and Community Corrections Statistics Unit
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Todd Minton is the Jails and Community Corrections Statistics Unit Chief for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Todd has worked as a statistician for over 25 years, providing expertise to BJS, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. federal statistical system on topics related to jails and the measurement of demographic characteristics of inmates held in local and Indian country jails. Todd oversees a team of statisticians with a portfolio of data collections, including the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ), Census of Jails (COJ), Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ), Survey of Jails in Indian Country (SJIC), the Annual Probation Survey, and the Annual Parole Survey. Todd holds an MS in criminal justice, with a specialization in corrections, from the University of Baltimore, and a BA in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Kelly Officer
Research Director
Oregon Criminal Justice Commission
Kelly Officer joined the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission in 2010 and has served as the Research Director since 2021. She has an MS in Statistics and extensive experience analyzing criminal justice data as well as evaluating program effectiveness and criminal justice performance measures. Mrs. Officer works on a wide variety of projects for the Oregon SAC, as she is the lead on fiscal analyses related to proposed legislation, conducts analyses on Oregon STOP Program data, and conducts analyses on all multi-agency projects where the SAC partners with other criminal justice system agencies within the state.
Andrew Ritzel
Executive Director
Kentucky Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center
Andrew Ritzel is the Executive Director of the Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. Prior to his work with the Cabinet, Andrew worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, and the CDC Foundation. Andrew’s roles have focused on creating new programmatic initiatives based on strategic needs assessment, metrics, data analysis, and process improvement methodology. Andrew graduated from the University of Kentucky with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Spanish. He further pursued his studies at the University of Kentucky and obtained a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in Health Behavior. Andrew holds a certificate in Grants Management.
Kevin M. Scott, PhD
Acting Director
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Dr. Kevin Scott is acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the primary statistical agency of the Department of Justice responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating statistics on crime, individuals who commit crimes, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. Dr. Scott has been with BJS since 2017 in a variety of leadership roles. Prior to joining BJS, Dr. Scott worked for the Congressional Research Service, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and as the Director of the Policy Analysis Unit in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. Kevin earned his PhD in Political Science at The Ohio State University.
George Shaler
President
Justice Information Resource Network
George Shaler is the Senior Research Associate at the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. He provides program evaluation and consultation services to state and local government agencies and community-based organizations. He offers technical assistance in evaluation capacity building (using a logic model approach) to many Maine non-profits. Mr. Shaler has extensive experience applying statistical methods and techniques and has been on the SAC staff since 2003. He has examined county jail trends, disproportionate minority contact, prison/jail health care issues, and juvenile and adult recidivism analysis and conducted a community policing program evaluation. Mr. Shaler has co-authored and/or edited numerous SAC reports, including the recent Disproportionate Contact: Youth of Color in Maine’s Juvenile Justice System, a winner of the 2015 Douglas Yearwood National Publication Award in the Statistical Analysis/Management category.
Kim Sperber, PhD
Director, Center for Health and Human Services Research
Talbert House
Dr. Kimberly Gentry Sperber holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati and is a nationally recognized researcher, consultant, and policy advisor with more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of criminal justice, behavioral health, and public health. She currently directs the Center for Health and Human Services Research at Talbert House, overseeing a multidisciplinary team and guiding research and evaluation across diverse topic areas such as risk-based treatment dosage, deflection, medication assisted treatment, and public health integration in criminal justice. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator on several evaluations of Ohio deflection teams and serves as a Co-Investigator with the National Center for Health and Justice Integration for Suicide Prevention (NCHATS), helping lead two pioneering randomized controlled trials that use real-time jail release data to trigger community-based suicide prevention efforts by a managed care organization. Her work is grounded in a commitment to translating research into actionable policy solutions that improve care access and outcomes for justice-involved individuals with complex medical, behavioral, and social needs.
Thomas Strauss
Director & Principal Research Analyst
Idaho Statistical Analysis Center
Thomas Strauss is the Director and Principal Research Analyst at the Idaho Statistical Analysis Center (ISAC). Housed within the Pass-Through Grants and Research Department of the Idaho State Police, ISAC partners with local, state, and national agencies to conduct justice system research, policy analysis and program evaluations. Mr. Strauss joined ISAC as a Senior Research Analyst in 2018 and in that role was a contributor to technical reports on a wide range of topics, including justice system performance and needs, services for victims of crime, and juvenile crime. Since becoming ISAC Director in 2021, Mr. Strauss has spearheaded ISAC’s efforts to increase access to justice system data using interactive public-facing data dashboards, research briefs and reports, and public presentations that convey easily digestible information on crime rates, factors influencing crime, justice system and community responses to crime, and services for victims of crime. Mr. Strauss holds a Master of Public Administration degree in State and Local Government (2017) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology (2015), both from Boise State University.
Niloufer Taber, PhD
Director of Research and Policy
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
Dr. Niloufer Taber is the Director of Research and Policy in the District of Columbia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). In her position, Niloufer serves as the Director of the DC Statistical Analysis Center, which is housed within CJCC. She is responsible for overseeing the agency’s research and analysis and interagency collaboration across the CJCC’s four priority areas: violent crime, juvenile justice, substance abuse and mental health, and incarceration and community corrections. She also conducts and manages qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research, evaluation, and data analysis to support evidence-based operational decisions and policy design.
Prior to joining CJCC, Niloufer worked as an Associate Director for Research at the Vera Institute of Justice for initiatives focused on postsecondary education in prison and connecting people returning to their communities with housing. In addition to her work at Vera, Niloufer has worked for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the Fortune Society, the Council of State Governments Justice Center, Family Justice, and the Legal Aid Society. She has experience working on youth violence and self-harm from a public health perspective, housing first models of public health intervention, alternatives to criminal justice system responses to public health issues such as mental illness and substance use, and family involvement in reentry. Niloufer has also worked in global health and economic development research, with a focus on South and Southeast Asia.
Niloufer holds an MPA in Urban and Social Policy with a focus on housing and benefits policy and an MPH in Epidemiology with a focus on substance abuse and mental health from Columbia University, as well as a PhD in Health Systems from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Jason Trask
Senior Program Associate
Justice Information Resource Network
Jason Trask is a Senior Program Associate who joined the Justice Research and Statistics Association in October 2000. During that time, he has held several positions on various data collection, program evaluation, and training and technical assistance (TTA) projects, including the Weed and Seed Data Center Project and the Bureau of Justice Assistance Center for Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement Project. Currently, Jason works on the Center for Victim Research, Incident-Based Reporting Resource Center, and the State Justice Statistics project, providing technical expertise in various areas. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Administration of Justice from the Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Science in Justice, Law, and Society from American University.
Leah Valenti
Project Manager
Justice Information Resource Network
Leah Valenti formally joined JIRN in May of 2023. She completed a practicum with the organization in 2021 while working on her Master of Science degree in Library and Information Science. Leah is a PMP-certified Project Manager and Certified Scrum Product Owner with over a decade of experience. She received her MSLIS from The Catholic University of America and her BS in Marketing from Rutgers University.
Tara Wheeler
Lead Data Analyst
Maine Statistical Analysis Center
& Policy Associate, Justice Policy Program, Catherine Cutler Institute
Tara joined the Maine SAC in 2020 and became its Lead Data Analyst in 2022. Drawing on her deep expertise in statistical methods, she interprets complex datasets and translates findings into meaningful insights for SAC research initiatives. Tara brings additional strengths in graphic design, which she uses to create clear, engaging data visualizations—including the Maine Prosecutorial Data Dashboard. Her research spans criminal justice, health policy, and economics. She has served as a data analyst at the Catherine Cutler Institute, home to the Maine SAC, since 2014.
Program Director
Michigan Justice Statistics Center
School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University
Scott Wolfe is a Professor and Ph.D. Program Director in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is also the Director of the Michigan Justice Statistics Center. Scott’s research focuses on topics such as police officer training evaluation, organizational justice, and police-community relations.
Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention Youth, and Victim Services
Jeffrey Zuback has been very active in the criminal justice data and research environment for over 15 years. He spent over 13 years at the Governor’s Office Crime Control and Prevention leading the data and research team and served a joint role as the Director of the Maryland Statistical Analysis Center where he was responsible for aligning the policy, statistical analysis and research resources with the Governor’s priorities. He also coordinated, conducted, and managed large scale data analysis projects to inform policymakers on various criminal justice data trends in the State of Maryland. Most recently, he oversaw the development of new data visualization tools, to include the use of Microsoft Power BI, to create innovative criminal justice data dashboards for internal and external customers. He also was hired as the first ever Public Safety Data Officer at the Greater Baltimore Committee where he conducted criminal justice research and data analysis to assist the business community with the development, implementation and measurement of effective public safety strategies for the Greater Baltimore region. He returned to the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy in June 2024 to lead the ever growing Research, Analysis, and Evaluation Team and the Maryland SAC. He received his Masters of Science degree in Criminal Justice with a specialization in law enforcement from the University of Baltimore in December 2011.