Amy Solomon is the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice. Prior to that, she was a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center.
Roger Werholtz was appointed Acting Secretary of Corrections by Gov. Bill Graves on Sept. 30, 2002, and was appointed Secretary of Corrections by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 13, 2003.
The late Carol Weiss was a Professor of Educational Policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education where she taught courses on evaluation, organizational decision making, and research methods. Her ongoing research dealt with educational policymaking, the uses of research in policymaking, and the influence of ideology, interests, information, and institutional rules and structures on policy.
Doris Layton MacKenzie, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland and Director of the Evaluation Research Group. She has an extensive publication record on such topics as examining what works to reduce crime in the community, inmate adjustment to prison, the impact of intermediate sanctions on recidivism, long-term offenders, methods of predicting prison populations, self-report criminal activities of probationers and boot camp prisons.
A 35-year law enforcement veteran, R. Gil Kerlikowske was selected by President Barack Obama to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Prior to being named drug czar, he was the chief of the Seattle Police Department. In that capacity, he talked to Aubrey Fox of the Center for Court Innovation about innovation and what can be learned from failed criminal justice initiatives.
David Wilson is Associate Professor, Administration of Justice at George Mason University and a member of the Campbell Collaboration's Crime & Justice Coordinating Group, an international network of researchers that prepares, updates, and rapidly disseminates systematic reviews of high-quality research conducted worldwide on effective methods to reduce crime and delinquency and improve the quality of justice.
Jeremy Travis is the President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Prior to his appointment, he served as a Senior Fellow affiliated with the Justice Police Center at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research and police organization in Washington, D.C. There, he launched a national research program focused on prisoner reentry into society. From 1994 to 2000, Travis directed the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Prior to joining the faculty at George Mason, Laurie Robinson served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice. She spoke to the Center for Court Innovation about failure in the criminal justice system.
Judith Sachwald served as Maryland's Director of Parole and Probation, leading over 1,300 employees who provided supervision to approximately 69,000 individuals under probation, parole, mandatory supervision or home detention. She guided the development and implementation of a research-based approach to supervision which holds offenders accountable for their actions while assisting them in becoming law abiding, responsible and productive. Under this new approach to supervision, offenders were 38 percent less likely to be arrested or violate the rules of supervision.
Michael S. Scott is a clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, specializing in research and teaching in policing, and the director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. Scott was formerly chief of police in Lauderhill, Florida, served in various civilian administrative positions in the St. Louis Metropolitan, Ft. Pierce, Florida, and New York City police departments, and was a police officer in the Madison, Wisconsin Police Department. He was a Senior Researcher at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Washington, D.C.