Foreclosures and Crime Meeting: Presenter Biographies

This page presents short biographical information for each of the presenters at an NIJ-hosted meeting on Foreclosures and Crime. The meeting was held March 31 to April 1, 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bernie Auchter has a bachelor's degree from Villanova University and a masters degree in social policy analysis from Rutgers University. He has worked as a child protective services caseworker in Pennsylvania and with a Probation Research and Development unit in the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts. For the past 33 years, he has been with the National Institute of Justice, and during that time he has been managing research programs on crime prevention, prosecution, adjudication, white-collar crime and family violence. He is currently a Senior Social Science Analyst and Acting Division Director in NIJ and has been working primarily on issues concerning violence against women, including domestic violence, sexual assault, teen dating violence, stalking and batterer intervention. In the recent years, he has also served on social service and domestic violence advisory boards at the county level. He has facilitated a variety of workshops and meetings organized by NIJ.

Eric Baumer is the Allen E. Liska Professor of Criminology in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. Professor Baumer's research focuses on how structural and cultural features of social collectivities influence attitudes and behavior. He has addressed this general theme in multilevel studies of the nature of violence, the mobilization of law, the formation of death penalty attitudes, and the disposition of felony cases; macrolevel studies of spatial and temporal crime and social control patterns; and case studies of crime and justice in unique sociocultural contexts such as Malta, Iceland, and Ireland.

Brandon Behlendorf is currently a second-year doctoral student in criminology at the University of Maryland, where he serves as the geocoding coordinator for the Global Terrorism Database at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. His research interests include cross-national criminology, terrorism, spatial analysis, neighborhood development, and quantitative methods. From 2004 to 2007, Brandon was a researcher with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, where he conducted a multiagency evaluation of a commercial vehicle diversion program and assisted in the creation of risk management programs and assessments for the Ohio Department of Public Safety. He received his master's degree from The Ohio State University (2003), and his bachelor's from the University of California, San Diego (2001).

Michael Bess is the Senior Management Analyst at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, North Carolina, and has been involved in law enforcement for 32 years, 24 of those as a sworn officer. He has served as a patrol officer, narcotics agent, criminal investigator, and crime analyst. Michael has concentrated on the geospatial analysis of crime and disorder over the past 10 years, and teaches in NIJ's popular crime mapping program throughout the southeast. He studied business administration at Montreat College and currently serves on NIJ's Geospatial Technology Working Group.

Ann Fulmer, a Vice President with InterThinx, has been identified by People Magazine as "perhaps the savviest mortgage-fraud sleuth anywhere" (10/27/05). Named as one of Inman News' "100 Most Influential People in Real Estate," she has helped authorities develop criminal cases resulting in more than 200 convictions. She has been quoted in leading national publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today and has appeared on national news programs, including ABC World News Tonight, Fox Business Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News. She has also written numerous articles for mortgage banking trade publications. Ann's work is informed by her experience as a litigator, a white-collar crime prosecutor, a tax assessor and a private detective.

G. Thomas Kingsley is a senior researcher in housing, urban policy and governance issues at the Urban Institute, where he served as Director of the Center for Public Finance and Housing from 1986 through 1997. He currently directs the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership — a foundation-sponsored initiative to expand the development of advanced data systems for policy analysis and community planning in U.S. cities — and other research projects concerned with reforms in subsidized housing programs. In recent shorter term assignments, he has advised HUD on strategy guidelines for the Empowerment Zone and Consolidated Planning Programs, and assisted HUD Secretary Cisneros in developing a series of essays on the future of American cities. His recent work on urbanization in developing countries and Eastern Europe has focused on decentralization policy, local economic development and land and infrastructure planning and financing. Earlier, Mr. Kingsley served as director for several major policy research programs, including testing the market effects of housing allowance programs (1974–80, the HUD sponsored Housing Assistance Supply Experiment); analyzing the structure and potentials of metropolitan Cleveland's economy (1980–82, for the Cleveland Foundation); preparing a national urban development strategy for Indonesia (1982–85, for the United Nations); helping the Czech and Slovak Republics design and implement policy reforms in housing and municipal infrastructure (1991–95, for USAID); and assessing American Indian housing needs and programs (1993–95, for HUD).

David S. Kirk (Ph.D., Sociology, University of Chicago, 2006) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Faculty Research Associate of the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Kirk was formerly Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland (from 2006-2009). Prior to earning his doctorate at the University of Chicago, Kirk worked at the Urban Institute, where he researched issues related to criminal justice policy. Kirk's current research explores the influence of social context and neighborhood change on criminal behavior. One ongoing project examines the structural and cultural predictors of neighborhood violence. Kirk's recent research has appeared in American Sociological Review, Demography, and Criminology.

Vivan B. Lord is the Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte with Adjunct Professor appointments in the Public Policy Doctoral Program and the International Studies Department. Dr. Lord received her doctorate in Psychology from North Carolina State University and is licensed as a practicing psychologist in North Carolina. She is a past chair of the Police Section, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and a past president of the North Carolina Criminal Justice Association. Dr. Lord is the author of two books: Challenges for Women Considering a Law Enforcement Career: A Guide for Preparing and Succeeding and Policing and Suicide by Cop: Inducing the Police to Shoot and is the author of 40 journal articles, academic book chapters, and technical reports exploring topics primarily in community policing, women in policing, police selection, ethics, police-assisted suicide, comparative policing issues, occupational stress, and workplace violence. Her career in policing began as a sworn officer in a municipal police department in North Carolina. She subsequently instructed, then managed the Justice Services Division of the North Carolina Justice Academy, the state police academy responsible for the basic curricula and in-service training for police and sheriff agencies.

Jim Lucht serves as Director of The Providence Plan's Information Group, an initiative dedicated to promoting the use of data to inform decisions that affect the well-being of Rhode Island and its residents. A recognized leader in the field of GIS throughout New England, Mr. Lucht actively engages partners from the public and private sectors through projects that enhance their capacity to visualize and interpret data. Since joining The Providence Plan in 2001, he has spearheaded collaboration with dozens of local clients including the Rhode Island Departments of Health, Administration, Education, and Corrections, as well as the Providence Police, Weed & Seed, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, the City of Providence, LISC, and the University of Rhode Island's Costal Resources Center. At the national level, he has managed projects with the National Institute of Justice, The Urban Institute, The Brookings Institute, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Mr. Lucht has a bachelor's degree in urban studies from the Worcester State College and a master's degree in community planning from the University of Rhode Island.

Thomas Ludden is a GIS consultant for the Metropolitan Studies Group at UNC Charlotte. He has contributed to several GIS-related projects, including neighborhood assessment studies for the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, and City of Chesapeake, Virginia, crime analysis for Project Safe Neighborhood with the Department of Justice, and neighborhood analysis for Charlotte Housing Authority. He received his bachelor's in Liberal Arts from Virginia Tech and his master's in Geography from UNC Charlotte. He is currently a part-time doctoral student in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte focusing on the relationship between foreclosures and housing prices.

Christopher D. Maxwell is Associate Dean for Research in the College of Social Science and Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University (MSU), and he is Associate Research Scientist in the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. He holds bachelor's degrees in sociology, criminal justice and psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a master's degree and doctorate in criminal justice from Rutgers University. Dr. Maxwell's research interests include testing for the benefits and costs of sanctions and therapeutic treatments for spouse abusers, the impacts of police and court services on victims of domestic violence, the epidemiology of violence against women by intimates, and the extent and correlates of sexual assault by and against adolescents. His current focus is assessing the extent to which intimate partner violence offenders are prosecuted and whether more prosecution and sanctions lead to less subsequent violence. He has published numerous articles in journals, including Criminology, Criminology and Public Police, Justice Quarterly and Journal of Quantitative Criminology.

Rodney D. Monroe was appointed Police Chief of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department on June 16, 2008, by City Manager Curt Walton. Chief Monroe leads the largest municipal police department in the state of North Carolina, with 1,650 sworn and 450 civilian members. He brings to this position the knowledge and experience of nearly 30 years in the law enforcement profession. He was the chief of the Richmond, Virginia Police Department from February 2005 to June 2008. His efforts there led to the lowest number of homicides in over 25 years. Under then Chief Monroe's leadership, the department regained its reputation as a leader in urban policing. Crime rates declined every year by approximately 10 percent during Monroe's tenure, and community policing initiatives were expanded. A recognized innovator and practitioner of community policing, Chief Monroe is known to refocus police departments on crime fighting and crime prevention through a more accountable organizational structure, new technology, and an enhanced strategy of community policing. A native of the Washington, DC, area, Chief Monroe served in the Washington, DC, Police Department for 21 years in a variety of assignments. He became a police officer in March 1979 and was promoted through the ranks, eventually serving as Assistant Chief of Police, where he managed the department's 2,600-member Patrol Services Bureau. He also led the Department's Criminal Investigations Bureau and the Office of Youth Violence Reduction. Chief Monroe was awarded a bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the National Executive Institute. He serves as a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major Cities Chiefs and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Peter J. Nigro is the Sarkisian Chair in Financial Services at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Prior to joining Bryant, he served as a Senior Financial Economist in the Policy Analysis Division at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a decade. His research interests include mortgage lending, small business finance, credit risk modeling and bank compliance issues. Mr. Nigro received a bachelor's degree from the College of the Holy Cross, a master's in economics from the University of Southern California and a doctorate in economics from Boston College. He has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Financial Research and Journal of Financial Services Research.

Derek J. Paulsen is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies and Director of the Graduate Program. Dr. Paulsen has published two books, Crime Mapping and Spatial Analysis of Crime and Tactical Crime Analysis as well as numerous articles dealing with crime mapping and crime analysis issues that have appeared in such journals as Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, International Journal of Police Science and Management, and Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. A frequent presenter on crime mapping topics at both academic and professional conferences, Dr. Paulsen has been an invited speaker numerous times at the NIJ MAPS Conference, NIJ Conference, UK Crime Mapping Conference, and the International Investigative Psychology Conference. In addition Dr. Paulsen is working on various projects dealing with urban growth simulators, crime and urban planning, safe design and planning, geosimulation and crime and spatial perceptions of crime issues.

Terry Quillen currently holds a position as a manager in FHA Loss Mitigation with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage has been a Tier 1 Servicer for FHA/HUD for 7 years running and is at the forefront of Loss Mitigation and the foreclosure issues facing our country today. Mr. Quillen has enjoyed 20 years in the mortgage industry and has recently held critical positions facing the mortgage crisis including Director of Asset Resolution and Director of Credit for EquiFirst Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr. Quillen has long been an active participant in the foreclosure process and an interested student of the economic and societal impacts it brings.

Winifred L. Reed is Chief of the Crime Control and Prevention Research Division in the Office of Research and Evaluation at NIJ. She is responsible for managing the research and evaluation portfolios of the division, including those in policing, crime mapping, forensics policy, terrorism and crime prevention. She has worked in a wide range of substantive areas during her more than 35 years of experience at NIJ, including law enforcement, Indian country crime and justice, gangs, school-based programs, criminal careers, criminal behavior and crime prevention. Reed received her bachelor's and master's degrees from American University.

Robert Renner is a Social Science Analyst in the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Before joining HUD, Mr. Renner was a geographic information system (GIS) consultant developing applications in a variety of fields, including crime mapping, transportation, planning, public health and housing. At HUD, Mr. Renner conducts research and geographic analyses of the Department's various programs. He is also responsible for HUD's inventory of spatial data. More recently, Mr. Renner has been involved in allocating billions of dollars in funds to state and local governments through HUD's major grant programs, including the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which provides emergency assistance to state and local governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties.

Sally S. Simpson is Professor and Chair of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include corporate crime, criminological theory, and the intersection between gender, race, class, and crime. She is past President of the White-Collar Crime Research Consortium (2004-2006), Chair of the Crime, Law and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association, and recipient of the Herbert Bloch Award from the American Society of Criminology. Simpson co-edited Corporate Crime (Ashgate, 2007) with Carole Gibbs and coauthored White-collar Crime: An Opportunity Perspective with Michael L. Benson. She also published Corporate Crime, Law and Social Control (2002, Cambridge University Press) and Of Crime & Criminality (2000, Pine Forge Press). Her recent articles have appeared in Business Ethics Quarterly, Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Law & Society Review. She is currently writing about corporate environmental crime and regulatory compliance.

Cornelia Sorensen-Sigworth is a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Ms. Sigworth serves as a Policy Advisor in the areas of law enforcement, investigations and forensic science, and crime prevention. In this role she works with national partners to combat crime and improve the functioning of the criminal justice system. Before joining BJA, Ms. Sigworth worked with the National Institute of Justice, DOJ, where her responsibilities included the substantive, programmatic and financial management of national research, evaluation and developmental programs. Ms. Sigworth holds a Master's degree in Justice, Law and Society from American University. She earned her undergraduate degree at Northern Arizona University.

Thomas R. Simon is the Deputy Associate Director for Science within the Division of Violence Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The primary focus of his research is on informing the development of youth violence and suicide prevention programs by studying risk and protective factors for aggressive and suicidal behavior. Dr. Simon has served as a scientific advisor on several CDC-funded etiological studies and longitudinal evaluations of violence and suicide prevention programs.

Deborah Spence is a Senior Social Science Analyst in the Program/Policy Support and Evaluation Division of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). Her duties vary widely from internal statistical analysis support to overseeing coordination of the COPS Methamphetamine Initiative Training and Technical Assistance grant program; she also serves as editor-in-chief of the COPS Office e-newsletter, the Community Policing Dispatch, which has reported on public safety challenges related to the economy throughout the past year. Deborah's areas of subject matter expertise include meth and other dangerous drugs as well as the economy and public safety, with a focus on the impact of economic conditions on law enforcement operations. Prior to joining the COPS Office in 2005, she was a Research Associate with the Institute for Law and Justice in Alexandria, Virginia. Deborah holds a master's degree in justice, law and society from American University as well as a master's in Modern History from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Ralph B. Taylor received his doctorate in social psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1977 after working in a residential treatment center for pre-delinquents. He has previously held positions at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins University. He was a Visiting fellow at the National Institute of Justice in 1997. He currently teaches and researches in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University, where he has been since 1984. At Temple he has served as department chair, and associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences. He edited Urban Neighborhoods (Praeger 1986) and authored Human Territorial Functioning (Cambridge 1988), Research Methods in Criminal Justice (McGraw Hill 1994) and Breaking Away from Broken Windows (Westview 2000). His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Corrections. His publications have appeared in an array of psychology, sociology, urban affairs, and criminology journals. He is currently on or has formerly sat on the editorial boards of Environment and Behavior, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Social Psychology Quarterly. Current interests include communities and crime, disorder and reactions to crime, crime prevention, views toward the criminal justice system, DNA policies, police contact and attitudes, household gun collections, multilevel modeling, and seeing students complete dissertations. His more than 50 refereed publications and 30 chapters/encyclopedia/handbook entries are listed online at www.rbtaylor.net/pubs.htm.

Glenn Theobald is the Chief Legal Counsel for the Miami-Dade Police Department. He currently provides legal advice and counsel to the Department Director, is the Discipline Coordinator, the Legislative Affairs and Grants Coordinator, and the chairman of the Miami-Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Chief Theobald started in 1983 as a Police Officer and worked his way through the ranks, attaining the rank of chief in November 2005. He authored and lobbied for the successful enactment of FSS 817.545 (2007), Florida Mortgage Fraud Law, FSS 193.133 (2008), and three other state statutes. He authored and is lobbying in the upcoming state legislative session to create a statewide mortgage fraud task force. Chief Theobald authored and lobbied for the successful passage in the United States House of Representatives, HR 6853 "The Nationwide Mortgage Fraud Task Force Act of 2008". He also authored and is lobbying for the successful passage of HR 529 and S 365 "The Nationwide Mortgage Fraud Task Force Act of 2009". He is working with both the Bureau of Justice Assistance and Community Oriented Policing Services to create a nationwide Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Chief Theobald has appeared and spoken as a local law enforcement mortgage fraud expert on CNN, CNBC, the NBC Today Show, and Fox News. He has also appeared in articles written by Reuters, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Miami-Herald, and many other periodicals. He has appeared on numerous local television and radio shows. His article "Mortgage Fraud in Florida: an Overview" was published in the Florida Chiefs of Police Magazine. Chief Theobald received a bachelor's from Barry University, a masters degree in public administration and his juris doctorate from the University of Miami. He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2002.

George E. Tita is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California - Irvine. His education includes a bachelor's from the University of Pittsburgh (1986), a master's of science in economic development (1993) and doctorate (1999) from the H.J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon. His interests include the study of interpersonal violence with a focus on homicide, urban street gangs and the community context of crime. His methodological toolkit includes both qualitative and quantitative approaches, with a strong interest in mapping and spatial analysis. Dr. Tita is involved with an interdisciplinary group of scholars working to promote the use of spatial statistics and analysis throughout the social sciences. Dr. Tita is also a member of the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR), a research and training center specializing in violence research. The Consortium's mission is to advance basic scientific knowledge about the causes or factors contributing to interpersonal violence, to train the next generation of violence researchers, and to disseminate its research findings to participants, policymakers, and practitioners.

Louis Tuthill recently began working with NIJ in the Office of Research and Evaluation. Before that, he worked at several research centers, including the Academic Center for Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention, the Robert Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies, and the Center for Native Nations. His research has examined issues surrounding juvenile delinquency, gangs, domestic violence and the social ecology of crime. He also has worked with communities to build effective, culturally competent interventions to these issues. Tuthill uses multiple methods in his work, including ethnography, meta-analysis, structural equation modeling, spatial analysis and hierarchical linear modeling.

Roger Vanderpool was appointed Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) by former Governor Janet Napolitano in March 2005. In his capacity as director, he oversees the operation of an organization with more than 2,000 employees and a budget of over $247 million. Director Vanderpool reports to the Governor for all statewide activities and issues associated with the Department. Director Vanderpool is a 33-year law enforcement veteran. Prior to his appointment as director, he was twice-elected Sheriff of Pinal County. He served with DPS for 20 years in various assignments, where he retired as a Lieutenant in narcotics. Prior to DPS, Director Vanderpool was a police officer in Indiana. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, having served in the U.S. Army. Director Vanderpool is a member of numerous state boards and commissions, including the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board, the Arizona State Homeland Security Commission, Federal Motor Carrier Administration Rules and Advisory Committee, and the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission. He serves as a member on the Board of Directors of the Arizona Automobile Theft Authority, and served as chairman on the Southwest Border HIDTA (High Intensive Drug Trafficking Area) for the Arizona Region. Director Vanderpool is a Past President of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. He is an active member of many civil organizations and a recipient of the first Law Enforcement Coordinating CommitteeEthics Award. He is a graduate of the FBI National Executive Institute, FBI National Academy, and the National Sheriffs Institute.

Kirk R. Williams received his doctorate from The University of Arizona and was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University. He has held faculty appointments at The University of Memphis and The University of New Hampshire, where he maintained an affiliation with the Family Research Laboratory. He also was a Professor at The University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was the founding Associate Director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Dr. Williams currently is Professor of Sociology, Co-Director of the Robert Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies, and Co-Principal Investigator for the Southern California Center of Academic Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention at The University of California, Riverside. He has published widely on the causes and prevention of violence, particularly involving youth or adult intimate partners, with the most recent publications addressing bullying, juvenile offending, and domestic violence risk assessment. He has received numerous grants from federal and state funding sources in addition to private foundations to support his research. His most recent federal grant is from the National Institute of Justice, supporting a study of youth homicide in the nation's 100 largest cities from 1984 to 2006. He also has worked extensively with community-based groups, schools, and agencies in violence prevention planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Ronald E. Wilson is currently heading up the Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety Program (MAPS) and the Data Resources Program at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in Washington D.C. Mr. Wilson's education is in the physical, social and computing sciences. The first part of his career revolved around computer science and software development issues with GIS. The latter half of Mr. Wilson's career has involved applying and advising on spatial data analysis methods as they apply to various criminological research projects at NIJ. He is currently working on research projects related to changes in the urban environment as they relate to crime trends. He also teaches spatial statistics courses at the University of Maryland and University of Michigan.

Rosemarie Wolfe is currently and has been the Director of Quality Control with EquiFirst Corporation since 2004. Rose has 24 years in the mortgage banking field, encompassing roles in quality control, operational and underwriting management, as well as project management. She has background in conforming, government and subprime lending. Rose is currently the Chair of the MBA's Fraud and Ethics working group and has been part of the MBA QA Leadership Committee since 2005. Rose has held her FHA Direct Endorsement underwriting certification since 1991 and is a certified Black Belt in Six Sigma process improvement.

Richard Woodcock began his career in the public sector in 1976 serving as County Planner in Duplin County, North Carolina, as a Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA). Since that time, Mr. Woodcock has worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, worked at HUD and spent 23 years with the City of Charlotte in a variety of roles. During the past nine years, he has served as Deputy Director for Neighborhood Development. Neighborhood Development includes code enforcement, affordable housing development and neighborhood education and organizing with a budget in excess of $40 million and a staff of 130. His current responsibilities include policy and business plan development, budget and financial management, GIS and information systems and human resources. Policy issues have included researching and making presentations on the city for Charlotte's foreclosure problems and gentrification. Mr. Woodcock serves on a number of citywide task forces on growth management, information technology policy and CIP development.

Mr. Woodcock holds a bachelor's in industrial relations/political science and a master of public administration from the University of North Carolina. He is a certified public accountant and certified local government finance officer.

Dr. Margaret Zahn is currently Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation at the National Institute of Justice. Prior to this position, Dr. Zahn was Director of the Girls Study Group, a 4-year study of girls in the juvenile justice system and those at risk of becoming part of the system. Dr. Zahn had a 30-year career in academia, where she studied violence in many contexts. Her numerous accomplished positions in research and academia include Professor of Criminology/Sociology at North Carolina State University, Acting Center Director of the Crime, Violence and Justice Policy Division at RTI International; Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University; and Associate Dean for Research, Graduate, and Interdisciplinary Programs for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. In addition to performing research, teaching, and administrative duties over her 30 year career, Dr. Zahn has also held a number of consulting and external review positions, managed grants and external contracts, gained substantial knowledge in external fundraising, and has held leadership positions in a number of professional associations. Most notably, she served as President of the American Society of Criminology from 1997 to 1998 and was selected as fellow of that association in 1998. Her forthcoming book, The Delinquent Girl, summarizes over 1,600 pieces of literature on girls and delinquency. She is the editor of 5 books and author of over 40 articles and book chapters. Dr. Zahn is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Pacesetters Leadership Award from The Ohio State University, the Outstanding Teaching Award from Temple University, and the RTI International Award for Highly Published Author. A native of Ohio, Dr. Zahn earned a bachelor of science degree in social administration (summa cum laude), a master of arts degree in sociology, and a doctor of philosophy degree in sociology, all from The Ohio State University.