Speaker Bios

Megan Alderden is an Associate Professor of Criminology at DePaul University. Her areas of expertise include victimology, policing, and program evaluation. She has published articles on police investigation practices and outcomes specific to sexual assaults and homicides, including those that examine the impact of forensic evidence in decision making. More recently, she provided research and technical support for a pilot project on the use of bystander intervention and behavioral threat assessment and management teams to prevent targeted violence. Prior to her tenure at DePaul University, she was the Research Director at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority where she oversaw numerous research and evaluation projects on policing, victim services, reentry, and violence prevention.

William Ash-Houchen joined the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission as a Senior Research Analyst in 2022. At the Commission, Will’s work includes data analysis, program support, and reporting on program effectiveness measures as well as criminal justice performance measures for the CJC’s Behavioral Health Initiative, which includes the Oregon Behavioral Health Deflection Program and the Improving People’s Access to Community-Based Treatment, Support, and Services (IMPACTS) Program. Will holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas Woman’s University.

The National Criminal Justice Association counts as it’s foundational members the nation’s 56 State Administering Agencies (SAAs). Annually, those SAAs are responsible for the distribution and management of over $2 Billion in federal criminal justice focused funds. Those funds are applied across the entire breadth and scope of the criminal justice system:  from law enforcement, prosecution, indigent defense, specialty court, corrections, community corrections and more.  As Executive Director, Chris is responsible for insuring that NCJA fulfills its mission to help SAAs maximize the impact of those funds in criminal justice systems throughout the country.

Chris began his career in public service trying hundreds of cases both as a Senior Deputy District Attorney and an Assistant US Attorney in the District of Columbia.  Specializing in the prosecution of sex crimes and child abuse, Chris developed a nationally recognized expertise in DNA technology.  Subsequently appointed Executive Director of the US Attorney General’s National Commission on the Future of DNA, Chris’s work managing the National Commission lead to receiving the U. S. Attorney General’s Award for Contributions to Public Safety. His work has carried him to more than 40 countries assisting governments improve their criminal justice systems. He has also served as an adviser to the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism’s Nuclear Forensic Working Group.

Julia Bergeron-Smith, M.P.P.M., M.S.W., is a Policy Associate at the University of Southern Maine’s Catherine Cutler Institute. Her work spans justice policy, child welfare, social policy, and community well-being, and she has spent more than a decade supporting partners across these areas. As Director of the Maine Statistical Analysis Center, Ms. Bergeron-Smith oversees applied research projects and provides technical assistance to justice system partners. As a member of the Data Innovation Project, she leads program evaluations for initiatives in higher education, positive youth development, workforce development, and direct services programs. Across all her work, Ms. Bergeron-Smith supports public agencies and community partners in using data and evaluation to inform strategic decision-making.

Ashley Billig, Ph.D. is the Director of the Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis (BJIA) and oversees the data collection, research, and evaluation projects within the Statistical Analysis Center. She earned her doctorate in experimental psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A member of BJIA since 2016, Ashley served as the primary UCR/NIBRS research analyst for the Wisconsin SAC and worked primarily on projects related to sexual assault and human trafficking. She also worked with a team on the analysis for the 2014-2018 Treatment Alternatives and Diversion (TAD) evaluation and has worked to design reports using data submitted to BJIA for the purpose of treatment court performance measure evaluation. She is co-chair of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) Data Sharing/Outcomes, Trends, and Indicators subcommittee and a member of the Race, Equity, Inclusion, and Access subcommittee. She has presented at the Association of Uniform Crime Reporting Program Conferences, the Justice Research and Statistics Association/Justice Information Resource Network Conferences, the American Society of Criminology Conference, and numerous state and local events. 

Kaitlyn Bouchard is a research analyst with the Ohio Statistical Analysis Center located in the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services at the Department of Public Safety. She holds a B.A. and an M.S. in Criminal Justice. Currently, much of her work involves the analysis of statewide crime data to assist in the development of public policy and statewide grant programs. Kaitlyn has worked on projects identifying Ohio’s crime trends with the purpose of increasing accessibility to state crime data. She has developed reports on domestic violence, stalking, gun crime, and sexual assault as well as examined trends in state justice grant funding priorities and programming as part of a comprehensive strategic plan to inform data-driven funding decisions.

Shira Burns is the Executive Director of the Maine Prosecutors Association after being appointed to the position in October of 2022. In her role, she oversees all training for prosecutors, grants, statewide projects and committees, and advocacy in the legislature. Before becoming Executive Director, Shira was a specialized prosecutor in domestic violence and sexual assault cases in York County, Maine since 2014. She is a former attorney for the State of Maine Judicial Branch and defense attorney. Shira teaches at the Maine Academy of Criminal Justice and guest lectures at the University of Maine, University of New England and York County Community College. She is part of a statewide strangulation training team that teaches all disciplines about the use of strangulation.

Shira served on the Board of Directors of Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine (SARSSM) for six years and had her own organization called Cops with Cakes that connects police officers with youth in shelters.

Senator Chip Curry represents Waldo County in the Maine Senate. He serves as Senate Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement, and Business, and sits on the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. He also serves on several statewide commissions focused on emergency services and public safety. Sen. Curry’s career has centered on helping individuals of all ages overcome challenges and reach their full potential. He has taught college courses in outdoor leadership, environmental stewardship, and civic engagement; spent more than a decade with the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet supporting statewide efforts to reduce child poverty and protect children from abuse and neglect; and has also worked extensively with adult learners returning to college to gain skills for better‑paying jobs.

Emily Dattilio, the Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Data Analytics and Program Support (ODAPS) at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), has over 17 years of experience spanning government and nonprofit organizations in the criminal justice field. She leads teams of researchers and analysts who conduct analyses, develop data dashboards and other analytic tools that inform criminal justice policy and decision-making across New York State. Emily holds an M.A. in Public Policy from the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Dr. Grant Duwe is Research Director for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, where he forecasts the state’s prison population, develops assessment instruments, and conducts research studies and program evaluations. Dr. Duwe is the author of two books and has more than 100 peer-reviewed academic publications on a wide variety of topics within corrections. In addition to creating risk-needs-responsivity assessment instruments that are being used with Minnesota’s prison population, he is the co-developer of the recidivism risk assessment tool used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Amy Farrell, Ph.D., is the Director and Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. She also serves as the Co-Director of the university’s Violence and Justice Research Lab.  Her research is aimed at understanding and describing how the criminal justice system administers justice. Over the past decade she has studied and published research about how local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies identify, investigate, and prosecute human trafficking cases. Her focus has also included labor trafficking victimization, and how the public views the problem of human trafficking and potential solutions. She works with policymakers and practitioners, including through her service on Governors Working Group on Human Trafficking in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Callie Ferguson is the deputy investigations editor for the Bangor Daily News, where she has worked since 2017. She also reports for the newspaper, focusing on criminal justice stories. Her work has received numerous local and regional awards, and she was a finalist for a prestigious Livingston Award in 2022 for her coverage of a young man’s plight in solitary confinement. In 2023, she became an inaugural fellow with The New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship and examined the state’s juvenile justice system. She lives with her family in Westbrook, Maine.

Angelina Guarino is the Assistant Secretary of Data, Policy, and Grants, overseeing data reporting, outcome measurement, policy reform and development, and grant funded initiatives within state corrections in Maryland. She joined the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in 2019, as the Executive Director of the Office of Data Development, where she oversaw the development of the Department’s recidivism calculation and public facing data tools. Previously she served with the State of Maryland as the Senior Director of Justice Reinvestment, and as a Director of Substance Use Programming within the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention  Her prior professional experience includes work as a public health and public safety analyst, conducting strategic opioid surveillance on a joint initiative between the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Office and the Centers for Disease Control. She spent 4 years supporting state and federal counter-narcotics investigations and enforcement as an intelligence analyst and Title III translator. 

Madeleine Gorman is the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance (MOVA), where she oversees the agency’s grant administration, data, and finance departments. MOVA’s mission is to empower victims and survivors of crime, which includes the administration of state and federal funding to support victim services across the Commonwealth. Madeleine has over 20 years of experience in the victim and survivor services field spanning both government and nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining MOVA, Madeleine held a number of direct service and managerial roles within a rural domestic violence and rape crisis center.

Stephen M. Haas, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized expert in applied criminal justice research, program evaluation, and evidence-based practice implementation. He is the principal and owner of Mountain State Criminal Justice Research Services, LLC and serves as president of the Justice Information Resource Network (JIRN).

Dr. Haas brings more than 30 years of experience leading research, evaluation, and technical assistance initiatives at the national, state, and local levels. He has served as principal investigator or project director on more than 50 projects, helping justice agencies use data to improve performance, strengthen programs, and inform policy and funding decisions.

His work focuses on performance measurement, crime and victimization surveys, implementation science, risk and needs assessment validation, program quality assurance, and evidence-based practices in adult and juvenile corrections. He is particularly known for translating research into practical strategies that improve system effectiveness and outcomes for justice-involved individuals.

In addition to his research, Dr. Haas has led numerous training and technical assistance (TTA) efforts across government, nonprofit, and private sector organizations. He routinely provides consultation and training in core correctional practices, risk-needs-responsivity (RNR) principles, case planning, motivational interviewing, and cognitive-behavioral interventions.

Dr. Haas holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and political science from The Ohio State University and a master’s and doctorate in criminal justice from University of Cincinnati.

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.

Dr. Janice Iwama is an Associate Professor in the Department of Justice, Law & Criminology at American University in Washington, D.C. She received her Ph.D. in Criminology and Justice Policy from Northeastern University. As a recognized expert in the study of violent crime and communities, her research focuses on the intersection between race, ethnicity, immigration, and crime. She has worked extensively on research grants with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies on gun violence, hate crimes, and policing. Her research has been published in several high-ranking scholarly journals including Criminology & Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, and the Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency. She has also collaborated with federal, state, and local agencies in identifying best practices, providing training, and developing resource guides to prevent and reduce hate crimes, gun violence, and racial profiling. Based on her work, she has received several awards in her profession and is a recipient of the National Institute of Justice Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science Academics Scholars Award. Her research has also been featured in several international and national news outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC News, Bloomberg News, NBC News, The Washington Post, Univision, and USA Today. She is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Constance Kostelac, PhD, MS is an assistant professor with the Institute for Health & Humanity, Division of Health Policy, Economics, and Data Analytics and Director of the Division of Data Analytics and Informatics for the Comprehensive Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her current work focuses on implementation, research, and evaluation activities for violence and overdose prevention and the impact of excessive alcohol use on health outcomes centered around community engagement and health equity. Dr. Kostelac also has an emphasis on data sharing across sectors to support prevention and intervention activities, including leading the efforts of DataShare, an integrated data system in Milwaukee. She has over 20 years of academic and applied analysis and research experience on a variety of topics and is now working at the intersection of public health and public safety. Prior to joining MCW, she was the research director for the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) director for Wisconsin.

James P. Lynch is professor and former chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. He served as the director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the United States Department of Justice from June of 2010 through January of 2013. .Previous academic positions include distinguished professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York; professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University and chair of that department from 2003 to 2005. Lynch’s research focuses on victim surveys, victimization risk, the role of coercion in social control, and crime statistics. He has published four books and numerous articles many of them dealing with crime statistics.   He was vice president-elect of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and served on the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics of the American Statistical Association. From 2008 to 2010 he was co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.  Lynch received his B.A. degree from Wesleyan University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Robert MacKenzie, MA is a Research Analyst at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the Division of Data Analytics and Informatics with the Comprehensive Injury Center.  Robert has extensive experience in data collection, analysis, visualization, and spatial analysis. He is currently focused on analysis of violence, excessive alcohol use and associated harms, and the impact of traffic collisions. Prior to his current role, he was an analyst with the Missouri State Patrol.

Mallory Minter-Mohr is a Social Science Research Specialist with the Policy and Research section of the Office of Criminal Justice Services since 2023. She holds an MA and PhD in Sociology from Bowling Green State University, with an area of focus on Criminology and Social Psychology. Mallory supports the analysis of law enforcement data using the Ohio Incident-Based Reporting System (OIBRS), as well as supporting grants for multiple criminal justice funding streams as a subject matter expert. Current work focuses on analyzing arrest and sentencing data from Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, with preliminary findings being used to support violent crime reduction efforts in Ohio.

Karhlton Moore is the Senior Vice President of Public Safety at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. He previously served as the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), where he led federal efforts to support state, local, and tribal justice programs, overseeing grant funding and initiatives aimed at improving public safety and criminal justice systems across the United States. His extensive experience also included serving as the Executive Director of the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services (OCJS), administering public safety funding and facilitating policy initiatives throughout the state. Karhlton received his Juris Doctorate from American University’s Washington College of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from Wright State University.

David Olson is a Professor in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at Loyola University Chicago, where he is the Co-Director (with Don Stemen) of Loyola’s interdisciplinary Center for Criminal Justice Research. Previously Dr. Olson served as the Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, the Director of the Department’s Graduate Program, and as Director of Loyola’s interdisciplinary Forensic Science Program. Dr. Olson currently serves as the Chairperson for the advisory boards of the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, and as a member of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority’s Board through separate gubernatorial appointments. Dr. Olson also currently serves on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Pretrial Practices Implementation Task Force, the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Firearm Violence Research Group, and the Illinois Pretrial Practices Data Oversight Board. 

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Olson worked at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, where he was the director of Illinois’ Statewide Drug and Violent Crime Control Strategy Impact Evaluation Program and was responsible for overseeing the evaluation and monitoring of federally funded drug control efforts in the State of Illinois. For six years, Dr. Olson served as a Special Assistant to the Cook County Sheriff through a cooperative agreement between Loyola and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.  

David has served as staff to the Illinois Governor’s Task Force on Crime and Corrections (1992-1993), the Illinois Legislative Committee on Juvenile Justice (1994-1996), the Illinois Truth-in-Sentencing Commission (1996-1998), the Illinois Governor’s Community Safety and Prisoner Re-Entry Management Workgroup/Commission (2004-2006), and the Illinois Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee (2007-2010). In 2015 Dr. Olson was appointed as a Commissioner to the Illinois Governor’s Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform. Dr. Olson has worked with a variety of federal, state and local agencies to develop and evaluate programs and policies, particularly in the area of community and institutional corrections, during his 35 years in the field of criminal justice. 

Dr. Olson has published more than 100 articles, research bulletins and research reports, and has made more than 100 presentations at professional conferences and training symposia. Some of David’s most recent research has been published in The Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, the Journal of Crime and Justice, and by the Duke University School of Law’s Center for Firearms Law. 

Dr. Olson received his B.S. in Criminal Justice from Loyola University Chicago, his M.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Political Science/Public Policy Analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was the recipient of the Assistant United States Attorney General’s Graduate Research Fellowship. In 2015 Dr. Olson received the John Howard Association Outstanding Research Contributions Award, and in 2011 he received the Hans W. Mattick Award for outstanding accomplishments in the field of criminology and criminal justice research from the Illinois Academy of Criminology.

Kelly Officer, Research Director. Kelly Officer joined the CJC in 2010 and has served as the Research Director since January 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’s traffic stop data program, and conducts analyses on all multi-agency projects where the SAC partners with other criminal justice system agencies within the state.

Piquero served as head of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, from June 2022 through August 2023, leading the agency’s efforts to collect, publish, and disseminate information on crime and the justice system. Piquero is a nationally and internationally recognized criminologist with more than 30 years of experience. Piquero has published over 550 scholarly articles and several books and his work has been cited more than 70,000 times.

Piquero is a Fellow of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. He also currently serves as a member of the Violent Crime Working Group at the Council on Criminal Justice. Previous appointments and positions include serving as a panel member at the National Academy of Sciences panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics; a panel member for the National Academies of Sciences panel on Approaches for Assessing and Communicating the Quality of National Statistics; a Board Member of the Committee on Law & Justice, National Academies of Sciences; a member of the U.S. Census Bureau National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations; and a Member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Adolescent Development & Juvenile Justice.

Nancy Radcliffe has worked in the Anti-Violence/victim advocacy field since 1988. She is a Certified Advocate with Comprehensive Victim Intervention Specialist, Advanced Status. Prior to OCJS, she served as the Project Director for the Linking Systems of Care for Ohio’s Youth (LSCOY)  Project at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. LSCOY was a federally funded, multi-year, collaborative project that focused Ohioans from birth through twenty-six years of age. The project focused on the sexual and physical violence that youth experienced, as well as severe crimes they were proximal to or experienced. Ms. Radcliffe has provided training to professionals and prevention education to school-aged children around sexual assault, stalking, intimate partner violence, child abuse/neglect. She has presented at national and state conferences on issues related to interpersonal violence and victim services.

 Prior to working in state government, Ms. Radcliffe worked for non-profits that addressed interpersonal violence. While she provided direct services through advocacy in a variety of settings for almost three decades, she also provided grant writing and administration. She oversaw a branch that provided services to crime victims, expanding services to two additional counties. While supervising staff and volunteers, Ms. Radcliffe emphasized secondary trauma prevention.

While at OCJS, her work supports the Family Violence Prevention Center. In this capacity, she has continued to work with allied professionals on projects. For example, she has been involved in the revision of the Ohio Department of Health Protocol for the Treatment of Sexual Assault Survivors for both adult/adolescent and adolescent/child protocols. She has provided expert witness testimony in multiple Ohio Counties. Ms. Radcliffe serves as a Subject Matter Expert at OCJS for federal and state funding streams that support s victim services. She is part of the Policy and Research Section, and works with her colleagues to gather, analyze, distill, and disseminate data and related reports.

Mrs. Charleá Robinson joined the DC SAC in September 2016 and has led the development and management of the Justice Statistical Analysis Tool (JSAT), which has been supported by Bureau of Justice Statistics funding. Currently, Charleá is the program manager for JSAT ensuring data governance and compliance for data the SAC receives for various legislatively mandated and ad hoc analytical products. Her role includes establishing standards for data quality, security and privacy protocol, documentation of business processes for partner agency data, and continuous oversight of the SAC database. Prior to joining CJCC, Mrs. Robinson was a Senior Law Enforcement Analyst in the Office of Research & Analytical Services with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for nine years. There, she refined her specialized knowledge and skills in criminal justice research, crime analysis techniques, research design, methodology and statistics, program evaluation methodologies, project management, process mapping and other law enforcement analytical tools. Her degree in Information Systems allowed her to work directly and communicate effectively with members of CJCC’s partner agency information technology departments as well as project managers to establish user requirements and analytical business processes for statistical reporting from an end user standpoint. Mrs. Robinson, a Florida State University alumna, obtained a Master of Arts Degree in Forensic Psychology from Argosy University, Washington, DC and a second Master of Science Degree in Information Systems from Strayer University. She is currently working toward her doctoral degree in Information Technology with a specialization in Information Systems from Capella University.

Fernanda S. Rossi, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, implementation scientist, and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Stanford Center for Dissemination and Implementation. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University and completed her clinical psychology predoctoral internship at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS). She also completed postdoctoral research fellowships in medical informatics and health services research at VAPAHCS/Stanford University and addiction implementation science at the Stanford Center for Dissemination & Implementation. Her research focuses on developing, evaluating, and implementing assessment tools and interventions, including clinical decision support tools, to improve the safety and mental health of individuals at risk of intimate partner violence, suicide, and drug overdose. Within implementation science, Dr. Rossi has also worked on providing recommendations for developing sustainable and effective dashboards using human-centered design and implementation science methods.

I serve as JIRN’s Interim Executive Director. I first joined the JIRN team in October of 2017 as the Project Director for the Center for Victim Research.  My background is in crime victim advocacy and research, including serving as Director of Public Policy for the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC). That work included analyzing federal and state legislation regarding the rights and interests of crime victims, exploring the capacity of the crime victim services field and identifying needed areas of improvement, exploring the integration of research and practice in victim services and developing recommendations to foster that integration.

Elisabeth is a Senior Policy Associate and the Director of the Violence Against Women Act Measuring Effectiveness Initiative (VAWA MEI), one of the Catherine Cutler Institute’s national technical assistance and evaluation projects. In addition to VAWA MEI, she serves on the Institute’s Integrated Management Team and supports other victim services research and evaluation projects.

Elisabeth started her career in anti-violence work in Maine as a sexual assault/domestic violence hotline advocate and a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) coordinator. She returned to Maine after a decade in New York City, where she completed a Master’s in Public Health, focusing on health policy and management while leading public health projects in both private and public sectors.

Elisabeth lives with her family in Portland.

Niloufer Taber is the Director of Research and Policy for the District of Columbia’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Prior to her work there, she was the associate director for research for initiatives focused on postsecondary education in prison and connecting people returning to their communities with housing at the Vera Institute of Justice. She has experience working on “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. She has previously worked at Vera, The Fortune Society, The Council of State Governments Justice Center, Family Justice, and The Legal Aid Society. She has also worked in global health and economic development, with a focus on South and Southeast Asia. She has an MPA in urban and social policy with a focus on housing and benefits policy and an MPH in epidemiology with a focus on mental health and substance abuse from Columbia University. She has a PhD in Health Systems from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Charles Vear, MPH is a Research Analyst at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the Institute for Health and Humanity, Division of Epidemiology & Social Sciences. His work focuses on analysis of violence-related data with an emphasis on firearm injury. Prior to his current role, he coordinated the Wisconsin Violent Death Reporting System and was a substance use epidemiology fellow at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Charles also serves as Secretary for the Midwest Injury Prevention Alliance. 

Before joining SEARCH, Mr. Veitenheimer spent 17 years with the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Justice, where he held leadership roles overseeing statewide criminal justice data collection programs. More recently, he served as Director of the Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis, leading research and evaluation efforts to inform data-driven policy decisions. He also previously served as President of the Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs (ASUCRP), Chair of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Subcommittee, and a member of the FBI’s National Use-of-Force Task Force.

Mr. Derek Veitenheimer is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, where he oversees initiatives in criminal history data and policy, justice information sharing, and cybercrime and digital forensics. He also leads the Open Justice Broker Consortium (OJBC), SEARCH’s technical development arm providing software and data engineering services to state and local jurisdictions nationwide.

Before joining SEARCH, Mr. Veitenheimer spent 17 years with the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Justice, where he held leadership roles overseeing statewide criminal justice data collection programs. More recently, he served as Director of the Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis, leading research and evaluation efforts to inform data-driven policy decisions. He also previously served as President of the Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs (ASUCRP), Chair of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Subcommittee, and a member of the FBI’s National Use-of-Force Task Force.

S. Rose Werth is the Senior Research Analyst at the North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center, which operates under the Governor’s Crime Commission and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. She has a PhD in Sociology and a MS in Statistics from Northwestern University. Her work focuses on quantitative and qualitative criminal justice research, data visualization, and translating research findings into actionable insights for policy and practice. Her topical expertise includes crime statistics, the social conditions that lead to crime, gun violence, racial inequality, emerging community safety practices, and research methods. Prior to her work with the state of North Carolina, she worked as a research analyst at the Northwestern Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science conducting gun violence research and at RTI International conducting applied criminal justice research in collaboration with local and state jurisdictions across the country. Her research portfolio includes several awards, publications in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, and an invitation to present on a Presidential Panel at the American Society of Criminology annual conference.  

David Yokum serves as North Carolina’s Chief Scientist in the Office of State Budget and Management. He is also Professor of the Practice at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Data Science & Society. David was previously director of The Lab @ DC in the D.C. Mayor’s Office and before that, a member of the White House’s social and behavioral sciences team and director of the U.S. Office of Evaluation Sciences. He works with local, state, and federal governments on how to generate and use evidence within policymaking, while also pursuing a research agenda on the psychology of how people change their minds and make decisions, especially as related to the interpretation and use of data.

Jeffrey Zuback has spent over 15 years at the Governor’s Office Crime Prevention and Policy leading the data and research team and serving a joint role as the Director of the Maryland Statistical Analysis Center where he is responsible for aligning the policy, statistical analysis and research resources with the Governor’s priorities. He also coordinates, conducts, and manages 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 received his Masters of Science degree in Criminal Justice with a specialization in law enforcement from the University of Baltimore in December 2011.