Staff
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Rula Adranly
Human Resource Specialist
Isami Arifuku, D.Crim.
Director of Research
Isami is NCCD's Director of Research, and has a doctorate degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She is the Director of the Administrative Core of the Center on Culture, Immigration, and Youth Violence Prevention Center, a partnership between NCCD and the University of California, Berkeley. Her previous experience includes a five-year research project funded by the National Institute of Justice, historical research for the State of California, small business development for a consulting firm, administrative analysis and research for the Chancellor's Office at the University of California, Berkeley, and teaching at Bay Area colleges and universities.
S. Christopher Baird
Executive Vice President
Christopher Baird is the Executive Vice President of NCCD and has directed the Midwest Office in Madison, Wisconsin since 1985. He has designed risk assessment, classification and case management systems for child welfare, adult probation and parole, and juvenile justice systems. He developed and managed the National Institute of Corrections Model Probation and Parole program which was implemented in 31 state agencies and hundreds of county probation departments throughout the United States. Mr. Baird served as principal investigator on two grants from the National Institute of Justice, including a comprehensive evaluation of the Florida Community Control Program. From 1990-1997, he directed NCCD’s Children’s Research Center which developed risk assessment and decision making systems used in Child Protection Services for over 50 state and county agencies in the United States and Australia. He and colleagues wrote a comprehensive evaluation of the system in Michigan assessing its impact on subsequent abuse and neglect. He directed and authored a national study funded by the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect (OCAN) that compared CPS risk assessment systems in four jurisdictions. He is currently conducting research for the Casey Foundation’s workforce initiative.
Mr. Baird has authored numerous journal articles and other publications on research, program development and management issues in child welfare, juvenile justice, and corrections. In 1992, he received the University of Cincinnati Award from the American Probation and Parole Association for outstanding research contributions to the field. In 2001, he and his colleague Dennis Wagner received the Pro Humanitate Literacy Award for "The Relative Validity of Actuarial and Consensus-Based Risk Assessment Systems" from the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare. In 2004, he received the Grace B. Flandeau Award for his contributions to child welfare. His educational background includes a Masters degree in Economics.
Alexander Busansky
President
Alex is the President of NCCD. He was a former prosecutor who began his career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 1987. During more than a decade of work at the district attorney’s office, he handled homicides, serious domestic violence and other family violence, and sex abuse cases. In 1998, Alex left New York City to work for the U.S. Department of Justice, becoming a trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. For nearly five years, he investigated and prosecuted cases across the country involving excessive use of force by federal, state, and local law enforcement and corrections officers and racial and religious hate crimes. In 2002, he was detailed to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming counsel to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. In that role, he worked on a broad range of juvenile justice, criminal justice, and homeland security issues including developing strategies to address the USA PATRIOT Act, drafting legislation concerning the use of excessive force by U.S. Custom agents, and developing the Anti-Gang Act.
In 2004, Alex joined the Vera Institute of Justice as the Executive Director of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. He was the founding Director of Vera’s Washington, D.C., office, where he led Vera’s work on numerous national and local projects and worked to develop new initiatives for Vera. Alex also served as an adjunct Professor at American University School of Law, co-teaching the Prosecution Seminar.
Busansky earned his Juris Doctor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Antoinette Davis
Senior Research Associate
Robert E. DeComo, Ph.D.
Senior Program Manager
Robert is a Senior Program Manager and has been employed at NCCD since the end of 1989. Prior to joining the Council, he was self-employed as a management consultant providing planning and technical services to federal, state, and local corrections agencies. He has also served as the Deputy Director for Planning, Research, and Information Systems for the South Carolina Department of Parole and Community Corrections. Dr. DeComo has also held positions in the legislative branch of government, as Staff Director of the Joint Legislative Committee on Children of the South Carolina General Assembly and as an Intern to the Senate Judiciary-Criminal Committee of the Florida Legislature. Dr. DeComo received his Ph.D. in Criminology from the School of Criminology at Florida State University in 1981. He received his Master's degree from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and his Bachelor's degree in Psychology at the University of Maryland.
Tim Dietrich
Controller
Shannon Flasch
Program Associate
Shannon Flasch joined the Children’s Research Center in August 2007 as a Program Associate. She works with Senior Program Associates on SDM projects in different states, currently focusing on case reading, technical assistance, and SDM training. She also works with senior staff to examine the existing research on emerging approaches to child protective services and their relevance to SDM. Shannon received her Master’s in Public Administration from the Wagner School at New York University, and worked for a private foundation supporting research on youth development prior to joining the CRC.
Caroline Glesmann
Research Associate
Caroline Glesmann has been a research associate with NCCD since 2006. Her experience at NCCD includes coordinating an undergraduate research training program as part of the Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention; participating in a long term, community-based process to plan a new youth center in Oakland; collecting and analyzing juvenile probation data for counties in the San Francisco Bay Area; and researching and writing reports on various topics including youth gang members. She has a dual BA in women’s studies and music from Brown University and an MA in sociology from California State University, East Bay. Prior to NCCD, her employment experience includes coordinating publications and public relations for various Oakland-area social service organizations.
Carolina Guzmán, MPH
Senior Researcher
Carolina Guzmán, MPH is a Senior Researcher at NCCD. She works on issues of race and justice, mental health in the CA juvenile justice system, and evaluation of reentry programs in the Bay Area. Carolina has expertise working in technically and logistically complex projects that incorporate statistically rigorous methods as well as community-driven strategies to build capacity and promote sustainability. Ms. Guzmán's experience includes directing the design and implementation of the evaluation plan for the Mentally Ill Offender Reduction Grant for the San Francisco Sheriff's Department and designing a four-year community evaluation of the Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Project in the Latino community in Oakland, a federally-funded project of La Clinica de La Raza.
Prior to joining NCCD, Ms. Guzmán served as a Senior Epidemiologist at the San Francisco Public Health Department, Environmental Health Services, where she led the evaluation and research of land use, economic development, and labor safety projects. Ms. Guzmán is an immigrant from El Salvador and has a graduate degree in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles, and serves on the board of directors at the Mission Development Agency in San Francisco and at the Mary Elizabeth Inn, a transitional housing program for women recently released from jail or prison.
Karel Herrington
Senior Contract Manager
Chris Hartney
Senior Research Associate
Chris Hartney is a Senior Research Associate at NCCD. He has worked at NCCD since 2001 and has nearly two decades of professional experience in research and statistics.
Examples of Chris' projects at NCCD include: the development of a Structured Decision Making system for the District of Columbia; management of the multiyear national evaluation of Parents Anonymous funded by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP); an analysis of the potential cost savings of alternatives to incarceration for nonserious offenders; an analysis of the interplay of media coverage, public sentiment, data trends, and policymaking with regard to youth violence in major US cities; a study of incarceration characteristics and recidivism in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility for the State of Hawaii; an assessment of health care access for system-involved youth, including a survey of the probation and mental health departments of every California county; and two studies of juvenile assessment centers, a nationwide survey on behalf of OJJDP and an evaluation of San Francisco's center on behalf of the City and the State of California Board of Corrections.
Chris was lead author on several NCCD publications documenting disproportionate representation of people of color in the justice system, including "Created Equal: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the US Criminal Justice System," "And Justice For Some: Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in the Justice System," "Native American Youth and the Juvenile Justice System" and documenting other salient issues in justice and corrections, such as "Attitudes of US Voters toward Nonserious Offenders and Alternatives to Incarceration," "The Nation's Most Punitive States for Women," "Youth under Age 18 in the Adult Criminal Justice System," and "US Rates of Incarceration: A Global Perspective." He is co-author of numerous published articles and has presented study findings before a variety of professional, governmental, and community groups. Chris has a B.A. from University of California at Berkeley and has completed all master's level coursework in Experimental Psychology at San Francisco State University.
Theresa Healy
Senior Researcher
Theresa, a Senior Researcher at NCCD/CRC, has extensive experience with database applications, data analysis, project planning, and technical support. Ms. Healy is the manager of NCCD/CRC Data Services where she oversees database development, data entry and analysis, and routine report writing services for child protective service agencies in California, Connecticut, Virginia, and Queensland, AU. Since joining NCCD/CRC, she has worked on a variety of delinquency studies, including risk assessment research for the Nebraska Division of Juvenile Services and adjudicated female offenders under the jurisdiction of Cook County Juvenile Probation and Court Services. Ms. Healy has a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Kristen Johnson
Senior Researcher
Kristen, a Senior Researcher with NCCD/CRC, has extensive experience with data analysis, project management, data collection, and technical support. Since joining NCCD/CRC, she has worked on a variety of child protective services and juvenile justice studies, including risk assessment research for the New York Department of Social Services, New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department, California Department of Social Services, Colorado Department of Human Services, and the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice. She is currently working on an ongoing evaluation of the State of Michigan's child protective services and foster care services. Prior to joining NCCD/CRC, Ms. Johnson was employed with the Center for Addiction Research and Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a program analyst for a clinical intervention trial. Ms. Johnson has an M.A. in Policy Analysis and a B.A. in Sociology with a concentration in analysis and research from the University of Wisconsin.
Barry A. Krisberg was the president of NCCD from 1983 to the end of 2009. He is known nationally for his research and expertise on juvenile and criminal justice issues and is called upon as a resource for professionals and the media.
Dr. Krisberg received his master's degree in criminology and a doctorate in sociology, both from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Krisberg has held several educational posts. He was a faculty member in the School of Criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. He was also an adjunct professor with the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii. He is currently a lecturer in the Law School and Legal Studies Department of the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Krisberg was appointed by the legislature to serve on the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management. Previously, he was asked by the Legislature to conduct a study on alternatives to prison commitments. Recently, Dr. Krisberg organized a California Task Force on Prison Crowding. He is past president and fellow of the Western Society of Criminology and was the Chair of the California Attorney General's Research Advisory Committee. In 1993 he was the recipient of the August Vollmer Award, the American Society of Criminology's most prestigious award. The Jessie Ball duPont Fund named him the 1999 Grantee of the Year for his outstanding commitment and expertise in the area of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. In 2007 Dr. Krisberg was awarded the Pro Humanitate Literary Award from the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare for his article, Hate the Player and Hate the Game.
Dr. Krisberg was appointed to by the California Attorney General to chair an Expert Panel to investigate the conditions in the California Youth Authority. He has recently been named in a consent decree to help develop remedial plans and to monitor many of the mandated reforms in the Youth Authority. He also was asked by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to serve on an Expert Panel on Improving Rehabilitation and Reentry Programs. Dr. Krisberg has assisted in investigations of correctional systems for the Special Litigation Branch of the United States Department of Justice and the California Office of Inspector General.
Dr. Krisberg has several books and articles to his credit including Crime and Privilege; Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children; A Sourcebook: Serious, Violent, & Chronic Juvenile Offenders with James C. Howell, Ph.D.; J. David Hawkins, Ph.D.; and John J. Wilson, Esq., and Continuing the Struggle for Justice: 100 Years of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Dr. Krisberg is frequently called upon by private foundations to assist with the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs-both their own and those of the public sector. The Annie E. Casey Foundation engaged him to assess the effectiveness of their Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, the single largest private program for juvenile justice system reform in the country. The Walter S. Johnson Foundation supported him to lead a Blue Ribbon Commission on California's policy of out-of-state placement of delinquent youth. Baptist Community Ministries has sought his expertise on assessing the needs of troubled youth in the greater New Orleans area and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation asked that he prepare a white paper on delinquency and substance abuse. The California Endowment selected Dr. Krisberg to evaluate a five county effort to improve mental health services in juvenile detention facilities.
Dr. Krisberg regularly appears as an expert on national network news shows about criminal justice issues and is frequently consulted by the leading radio and print media.
Thao Le
Senior Fellow
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Michael Lok
Research Associate
Michael Lok is a Research Associate at NCCD and supports the community mobilization efforts for the Center on Culture, Immigration, and Youth Violence Prevention. Michael provides logistical support and technical assistance on projects initiated through the Center’s Asian Pacific Islander Community Response Plan (CRP) and the Community Committee. The technical assistance includes facilitating discussions, planning speaker events, designing and analyzing survey data, and researching best practices for youth violence prevention programs. He also coordinates the NCCD Internship Program. Michael holds a Bachelors of Arts in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Masters of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Susan Marchionna
Director of Communication
Fred Mills
Senior Fellow
Belinda Nip
Senior Accountant
Katherine Park
Assistant Director
Katherine is Assistant Director of the Children’s Research Center, working with state and local child welfare jurisdictions on the development and training of Structured Decision Making® (SDM) case assessment systems in child protective services (CPS). Katherine has helped develop and implement SDM® systems in New Hampshire, Missouri, Vermont, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Queensland, Australia. She has also provided technical assistance to jurisdictions in California, Minnesota, and Michigan. She has also worked with Riverside County, California to develop a SDM system for adult protective services.
Katherine has several years of field and administrative experience in both public and private social service settings in the state of Georgia. Her field experience in public social services spans the continuum from child protective service investigation and ongoing case management to supervision of both child and adult protective services at the county level. Additionally, she worked at the State of Georgia Division of Family and Children Services as a CPS policy consultant, managing the state’s family preservation budget and programs, and providing training and technical assistance to county CPS staff throughout the state. Within the private sector, Katherine was the Administrative Director of Pathways Transition Programs, Inc. in Atlanta, GA specializing in the development and provision of model programs for abused, neglected, and delinquent youth and their families.
Vanessa Patino
Senior Research Associate
Vanessa Patino Lydia is a Senior Research Associate at NCCD. She has worked at NCCD since 2001 and is currently coordinating the research efforts of NCCD's newest division, the Center for Girls and Young Women. Her research interests focus on the juvenile justice system, specifically girls and minority youth issues. She is particularly interested the system policies and practices that negatively impact youth outcomes and in bridging the gap between research and practice. She was part of the team to develop the gender-specific version of NCCD's Juvenile Assessment and Intervention System (JAIS) and has worked on several national and state research projects. Ms. Patino Lydia has co-authored three major juvenile justice studies: What Kind of Future,?" a comprehensive juvenile justice system study looking at the cost savings of community based alternatives; Detention Reform in Florida, which examined conditions of confinement; and, A Rallying Cry for Change, the largest profile of girls in juvenile justice. Before joining NCCD, she worked as a research assistant for a community based program, and in local government as a case manager for a juvenile diversion program. She received her Bachelors degree in Criminology and Masters in Public Administration, specializing in juvenile justice policy from Florida State University.
Renee Plog
Communications Coordinator
Lawanda Ravoira
Director, Center for Girls and Young Women
Dr. Lawanda Ravoira is a national expert, researcher, published author and trainer on issues specific to justice- involved girls and systemic reform. She is the director of the National Council and Crime and delinquency's Center for Girls and Young Women and serves as a consultant with Children's Campaign, Office of Justice (OJJDP) and Health and Human Services (OAPP), Washington, DC and numerous state and local jurisdictions and youth servicing agencies throughout the country. Her work includes the provision of training and consultation services in numerous states including California, Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas.
Dr. Ravoira serves as the Vice Chair of the State of Florida Blueprint Commission convened by Governor Charlie Crist and Secretary Walt McNeil and she was appointed to co-chair the State of Florida's Girls Advisory Council. She serves as the project director for Children's Campaign, Inc. Justice for Girls statewide advocacy initiative and authored the soon to be released: Justice for Girls: A Blueprint for Action.
Funded by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, she co-authored and served as one of the primary researchers for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency recently released research report entitled, A Rallying Cry for Change: Charting a New Direction in the State of Florida's Response to Girls in the Juvenile Justice System. Additionally, she authored, Social Bonds and Teen Pregnancy, Greenwood Publishing, that includes her original research on homeless and runaway pregnant and parenting teenage girls.
Dr. Ravoira wrote and worked for the passage of HB1989 which amended the State of Florida's juvenile justice statutes to mandate gender specific services. Florida became the second State in the nation to pass this groundbreaking legislation.
For over 13 years, Dr. Ravoira served as the President & CEO of PACE Center for Girls, Inc., a state wide not-for-profit organization that provides gender responsive, comprehensive educational, therapeutic and transitional support services to 4,500 at risk girls annually. Prior to her tenure at PACE, she was the Director of Program Services for the National Network of Runaway and Youth Services in Washington, DC and she served as an administrator with Covenant House/Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, an international child-caring agency that provides residential and non-residential services to homeless and runaway youth. Previous experience includes working as a social worker with inner city youth in New York City with Catholic Guardian Society.
Sean Taylor
Invoicing Specialist
Richard Tillson
Senior Fellow
Linh Vuong
Research Associate
Linh Vuong is a Research Associate at NCCD. She has worked on a wide range of projects that involve data collection and analysis, survey and study design, as well as study implementation. These include Disproportionate Minority Contact reports for Alameda County and for a nation-wide report, and several evaluations of community-based programs. Linh's interest in linking research to policy has led her to write several policy pieces, on topics such as gang legislation, services for at-risk youth, and other domestic social policy issues. She has received training in qualitative interviewing, ArcGIS, and policy analysis and evaluation. Linh holds a dual Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. In her spare time, she enjoys sewing and wishing she had a dog.
Dennis Wagner, Ph.D.
Director of Research
Dennis Wagner has served as research director or project manager for numerous NCCD and CRC research studies in more than 20 states including the Michigan Foster Care Case Management Study; the New Mexico Child Protective Services Risk Assessment Study; the Rhode Island Department of Children Youth and Families Child Juvenile Risk Assessment Study; Nebraska Board of Parole Risk Assessment Study; and the National Institute of Justice's Evaluation of the Florida Community Control Program. Before joining NCCD/CRC in 1988, he was the evaluation officer for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services where he was responsible for planning and evaluating a variety of correctional and social service programs for adults and children. Dr. Wagner has BA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Judy Wallen
Research Associate
Rick Wiebush
Senior Program Specialist
Rick Wiebush is a Senior Program Specialist at the NCCD Children's Research Center. He has worked with NCCD since 1990. Mr. Wiebush's primary interests are in: 1) the design and implementation of risk-based case management systems for juvenile justice and child welfare agencies; 2) the assessment of youth and family characteristics and their relationship to juvenile/child welfare system decision making; and 3) program evaluation.
Mr. Wiebush specializes in helping local and state agencies design and implement Structured Decision Making® (SDM) systems. SDM® includes research-based risk assessment tools, needs assessments, detention assessment instruments; dispositional guidelines and reassessments of risk and needs. While most of his SDM-related work is in the field of juvenile justice, he has also worked with several different child welfare agencies to design and implement more effective assessment and classification systems.
Rick also provides technical assistance and training on the development of graduated sanctions systems. He is currently working with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges delivering training and TA on graduated sanctions to ten sites across the country. As part of that project, he served as the editor of the recently completed "Planning Guide for Graduated Sanctions."
Angela Wolf, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher
Angela Wolf is a Senior Researcher at NCCD. Dr. Wolf has over ten years of experience in public policy research and program evaluation. She has directed research on gang violence prevention, female offenders and their children, girls in the juvenile justice system, child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, and delinquency.
Dr. Wolf is currently directing NCCD’s work on the California Cities Gang Prevention Network (CCGPN). The goal of the CCGPN is to reduce gang-related violence and victimization through cross-city peer learning, to identify and implement best practices, and to initiate state policy changes to support local practice. As part of this project, Dr. Wolf produced an in-depth report on street outreach strategies aimed at supporting youth in leaving gang lifestyles and reducing gang violence. Dr. Wolf is also working with the State of California’s Department of Juvenile Justice to design and implement the department’s Individualized Behavior Treatment Model (IBTM). The IBTM is a description of the treatment approach that will be used across the system as part of California’s juvenile justice reform efforts. Dr. Wolf is a co-author of the IBTM report and a co-leader of the department’s implementation workgroup.
Recently completed projects include the OJJDP-funded National Evaluation of Parents Anonymous®, the only federally-funded child abuse prevention program in the United States. Dr. Wolf served as the Principle Investigator and evaluated the effectiveness of Parents Anonymous® in reducing child abuse through a longitudinal research design. The Women in Prison Project of California was a research and mobilization effort informing strategies for the decareration of women in prison in California. The project focused on an examination of best practices for gender-specific programming, sentencing practices, community-based alternatives to incarceration, and health care provision to guide a strategic community mobilization effort prior to reentry. She also conducted an examination of the Police Procedure for Children of Arrested Parents in San Francisco California.
Other justice-related projects include the National Evaluation of the National Resource Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, the Workforce Turnover Study, the Nationwide Human Service and Employment Study, the National Evaluation of Community Assessment Centers, and the Hawaii Youth Recidivism Study. She has authored peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other publications on juvenile offending, incarcerated women and girls, and domestic violence
Her areas of expertise include social change and criminal and justice system reform, children’s exposure to violence and trauma, interventions and advocacy for delinquent youth and abused children, and strategic planning and community mobilization strategies. She holds a Masters and a Doctoral degree in Ecological/Community Psychology from Michigan State University and received her Bachelors degree from the Texas A&M University.