Advancing Science — News from the NIJ Director

Greetings from (earlier this month) down under! I was delighted to deliver the opening keynote at the 2024 Applied Research in Crime and Justice Conference, hosted by Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

In addition to sharing NIJ’s research priorities and activities, I highlighted our interest in expanding our research partnerships because we often find value from what’s working in international justice practices. I also met with members of the Victoria and New South Wales police services to discuss challenges and strategies in evidence-based policing.

Shout out to NIJ science staff and the Medicolegal Death Investigation Technical Working Group (part of our Forensic Science Technology Center of Excellence) who recently updated NIJ’s death investigation guide. This includes several important field updates since the last revision in 2011.

DOWNLOAD GUIDE

The 2024 NIJ National Research Conference is right around the corner! ICYMI — we recently posted the full draft agenda for our plenary sessions, panels, and presentations. I look forward to hearing from such a fantastic lineup of experts across the field. P.S. Be sure to register if you haven’t already!

REVIEW AGENDA

Our newest podcast episode is about the Restoring Promise program, which enables correctional facilities to improve their culture and reduce violence. A recent NIJ-supported evaluation found that the program led to decreased violent infractions and significant reductions in restrictive housing use, among other positive outcomes. Great to hear from Selma Djokovic at the Vera Institute of Justice and Josh Somers from MILPA — co-operators of Restoring Promise — who share their insights on the program’s potential to transform corrections culture and its ability to be replicated across diverse corrections environments.

TUNE IN

Richard Adrien is our newest grants management specialist. He joins us from the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living, where he served as a program analyst and grants management specialist.

He also served as a program officer for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and a research analyst at Westat.

Dr. Bridget McKenney joins NIJ as our new human subjects privacy analyst. Bridget will be advancing our human subjects policies and practices, as well as working with OJP’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Bridget was a former associate professor and department chair at the Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology at King’s College, where she was also a member of their IRB for the past 10 years, serving as chair since 2017.

As a data scientist in the Office of the Principal Deputy Director, Erin Partin will develop policies, standards, designs, action plans and data analytics on NIJ-wide governance, promoting data system integrity. She will also play an important role in the continued development of NIJ’s National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD).

Prior to NIJ, Erin served as a statistician at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, where she managed the D.C. Statistical Analysis Center, leading key criminal and juvenile justice research and analysis.

Wayne Rivera-Cuadrado is our newest social science research analyst joining NIJ's Office of Violence and Victimization Prevention. Wayne will serve as a subject matter expert in firearms and community violence intervention and prevention initiatives.

Prior to NIJ, he was a Research Fellow in the Institute for Policy Research’s Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS). His research includes studying community policing, street outreach, community violence intervention, and experiences of sexual assault survivors. He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University.