People

Staff

Wogod Alawlaqi, Senior Research Coordinator with the Research and Evaluation Center. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Legal Studies from New York City College of Technology. She also worked for immigration attorneys in assistant immigrants immigration procedures from Mexico and the Middle East. She wants to pursue a career in immigration and help immigrants assimilate into the American lifestyle. Publications

Nicole Alexander, Communications Officer, graduated from the CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies undergraduate program. She was a McNair Scholar, Pinkerton Fellow and an E.L.L.A (engage lead learn act) fellow with the Sadie Nash Leadership project. She is currently pursuing a Masters degree in branding and integrated communications at the City College of New York. Publications

Rebecca Balletto, Senior Research Administrator, manages contractors and oversees the work of external partners of the Center. Previously, she was involved in the evaluation of a program aimed at generating cognitive and behavioral change in adolescents detained on Rikers Island. Rebecca graduated from the University of Liverpool and earned a Masters in Criminal Justice at John Jay College.

Justice A. Banks, Research Coordinator, was previously the director of a non-profit harm reduction agency in the Bronx and a social worker with a public human services agency. He was also a supervising research associate with the Research and Evaluation Center’s 4-year evaluation of the Cure Violence model in New York City. Justice holds a masters degree from the University of Chicago.

Jeffrey Butts, Director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Previously, he was a research fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and director of the Program on Youth Justice at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Jeff graduated from the University of Oregon and earned the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Publications

Patricia Cobar, Research Coordinator, earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She has extensive experience in child care and helped collect school supplies for underprivileged children in Honduras. Patricia participated in multiple running marathons to raise thousands of dollars for Autism Research. —Publications

Sheyla Delgado, Deputy Director for Analytics, leads the statistical work for all Center projects and directs the evaluation of Cure Violence. Sheyla graduated from Florida State University in 2008 with a B.A. in criminology and a B.A. in international affairs, and she earned the M.A. in criminal justice from John Jay College in 2013. Publications

Richard Espinobarros, Research Analyst, works on the evaluation of Cure Violence and the Center’s projects with the New York City Mayor’s Office for Criminal Justice. Previously, he worked at the Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts. Richard graduated from John Jay College with a B.A in criminology and minor in psychology. Publications

Gina Moreno, Research Analyst, earned bachelors and masters degrees from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She completed year-long fellowships at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she worked primarily on expanding access to post-secondary education in prison, and the Drug Policy Alliance, where she worked on drug policy reform campaigns. Publications

Rhoda Ramdeen, Chief of Operations for the Research and Evaluation Center. Prior to joining the Center staff in 2010, she was an assistant to the director of the Business and Finance Department at John Jay College. Rhoda graduated from John Jay College with a BA in forensic psychology and she earned a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from John Jay with a concentration in human resources management.

Jason Szkola, Senior Research Associate in the Research and Evaluation Center and a criminal justice policy, oversight, and administration Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Previously, he was a researcher with Good Shepherd Services and the Police Athletic League. Jay graduated with from Northeastern University and earned an MSW from New York University. Publications

Kathleen Tomberg, Deputy Director for Strategy and the IRB Officer (Institutional Review Board) for the Research and Evaluation Center. Previously, she worked on an evaluation of a therapeutic program for incarcerated adolescents and the creation of a youth reentry directory. Kathy is a graduate of Furman University and she earned the masters in forensic mental health counseling from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Publications

Faculty Affiliates

Douglas Evans, is a faculty member at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His work focuses on criminal stigma that the formerly incarcerated experience in housing and social networking, the effects of higher education in prison, the consequences of incarceration for public health and family stability, and evaluation of alternatives to incarceration for youth and adults. Doug earned the Ph.D. at Indiana University–Bloomington. Publications

Lila Kazemian is a graduate of Université de Montréal in Canada, and she earned the Ph.D. in criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. She joined the sociology faculty of John Jay College in 2006 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK). More information — REC Publications

Eric Piza is Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. He earned the Ph.D. from Rutgers University. His research focuses on the spatial analysis of crime patterns, crime control technology, and the integration of academic research and police practice. More information

Kevin Wolff, Chief Methodologist in the Research and Evaluation Center and a faculty member in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College. His interests include the spatial patterning of crime, criminological theory, quantitative methods and juvenile justice. Kevin received the Ph.D. from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. More information — REC Publications

Rudin Research Fellows

Diba Rouzbahani, Rudin Research Fellow, is a Ph.D. student in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York/ John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research focuses on sentencing practices and the relationship between punishment and inequality. Previously, she served as CUNY Summer Fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice working on analyzing and visualizing jail expansion. Diba graduated with a B.A in law from Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran and holds a masters in criminal justice from Rutgers University.

Lidia Vásquez, Rudin Research Fellow, is a Ph.D. Student in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York/ John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Previously, she worked on impact evaluations of governmental programs, labor market dynamics and women’s economic empowerment at La Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y Social (FUSADES) and before that on transparency and anti-corruption for the United Nations Development Program. Lidia graduated with a B.A. in business and economics and a diploma in quantitative methods from Escuela Superior de Economía y Negocios (ESEN), La Libertad, El Salvador.

Yuchen Hou, Rudin Research Fellow, is a Ph.D. candidate in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York/ John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His research interests include police use of force, police use of body-worn cameras, and multi/mixed-methods research designs. Hou, in his doctoral dissertation, aims to identify multilevel factors that may differentially contribute to the opportunities for fatal and non-fatal police shootings in the United States, by building a crowdsourced national database on police shootings. Hou earned a masters in procedural law at People’s Public Security University of China, after graduating with a bachelor of laws in criminal investigation from Criminal Investigation Police University of China.