Staff

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.

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

Mauricio Campos, Graduate Research Fellow, earned a bachelors and masters degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is currently a masters student in the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences program at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is a research analyst at NYPD and his research interests are program evaluation, crime analysis, community engagement, and media and perception research.

Laurae Caruth, Graduate Research Fellow, is a graduate of Syracuse University and earned an M.S. from Fordham University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. She was a prosecutor in the criminal and juvenile systems for almost a decade before transitioning to legal executive/administrative roles. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center/John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Patricia Cobar, Senior 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

Gina Moreno, Senior Research Analyst, earned bachelors and masters degrees from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a masters in statistics from Baruch College. 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

Fidel Osorio, Research Analyst, focuses on exploratory data analysis, data collection and processing, and statistical modeling. Fidel graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York with a B.S. in computer science and information security.

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.

Kathleen Tomberg, Deputy Director for Strategy and IRB Officer (Institutional Review Board). 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

Affiliated Scholars

Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill is a faculty member at Arizona State University and former research director for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. A Ph.D. graduate of the CUNY Graduate Center/John Jay College, his scholarship centers on social identity and the subjective experience of justice and includes theoretical, policy-oriented, and evaluation research.

Preeti Chauhan is a professor in the psychology department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York,  and the co-founder and former director of John Jay’s Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ). Preeti graduated from the University of Florida and earned the Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia.

Talib Hudson is Director of Special Projects with the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College. He earned the Ph.D. in public and urban policy at the New School in New York City, focusing on community-based violence prevention. He founded The New Hood, a community-based policy and research center within the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School.

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).

Elaine Yi Lu is a professor in the Department of Public Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Public Administration and currently directs one of the largest NASPAA-accredited programs, ranked by US News in 2024 as the #1 public university MPA in New York City.

Marcos Soler is an adjunct assistant professor at John Jay College and New York State’s Deputy Secretary for Public Safety. Previously, he was director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ). He earned the Ph.D. from The New School University, New York. His research focuses on criminological theory, gun violence, and analysis of crime trends.

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.

 

In Memoriam — Remembering Friends and Colleagues