Staff
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Rula Adranly
Human Resource Specialist
Toni Aleman
Director of Administration
Toni Aleman is the Director of Administration for NCCD. Ms. Aleman directs all agency operational and administrative activities, including the areas of personnel/human resources, Board of Directors, operational systems/technology, administrative services, technology/communication systems, and project and administrative management of services such as JAIS, CAIS, and SafeMeasures. Ms. Aleman has a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Isami Arifuku, D.Crim.
Senior Researcher
Isami Arifuku, Ph.D., is a senior researcher with NCCD. Her research interests focus on racial disparities in the justice and educational systems, community studies, and evaluations of effective interventions that decrease criminal involvement. She was the director of the administrative core for the Center on Culture, Immigration, and Youth Violence Prevention, an Academic Center of Excellence. This partnership between NCCD and the University of California, Berkeley, was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her previous experience includes a five-year research project on race, crime, and social policy funded by the National Institute of Justice; research on historic sites for Japanese Americans for the State of California; small minority business development for a consulting firm; administrative analysis and research for the Chancellor’s Office at UC Berkeley; and teaching at California State University East Bay, UC Berkeley, and Chaminade University in Honolulu. Isami received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
S. Christopher Baird
Director of Research - Midwest
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 Specialist
Robert is a Senior Program Specialist 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
Senior Program Specialist
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.
Michelle Ghafar
Communications Cooordinator
Michelle Ghafar is Communications Coordinator at NCCD, where she supports President Alex Busansky, Communications Manager Renee Plog, and Associate Director Angela Irvine. In addition to creating and disseminating the agency-wide internal and external newsletters and coordinating NCCD’s PASS Awards program, she manages the contact database, assists in proposal completion, handles web content, and collaborates in event planning. Her experience prior to NCCD includes research project management and database administration. Michelle has a BS in managerial economics from the University of California–Davis and brings public programs and community outreach experience to NCCD.
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.
Livier Gutierrez
Research Associate
Karel Herrington
Senior Contract Manager
Chris Hartney
Senior Researcher
Chris Hartney is a Senior Researcher at NCCD. He has worked at NCCD since 2001 and has two decades of professional experience in research and statistics.
Examples of Chris’ projects at NCCD include: management of the 3-year national evaluation of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (funded by OJJDP); an assessment of the causes and impacts of the decarceration of youth from California’s youth prison system; a bed space needs forecast for youth tried as adults in Baltimore, MD (AECF and OSI); 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; the development of a Structured Decision Making system for the District of Columbia; an analysis of the interplay of media coverage, public sentiment, data trends, and policymaking with regard to youth violence in major US cities; 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, an evaluation of San Francisco’s center and a nationwide survey on behalf of OJJDP.
Chris has authored 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 several 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, has extensive experience with database applications, data analysis, project planning, and technical support. Ms. Healy is the manager of NCCD 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, 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.
Angela Irvine
Director of Research
Kristen Johnson, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher
Kristen, a Senior Researcher with NCCD, has extensive experience with data analysis, project management, data collection, and technical support. Since joining NCCD, 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, 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.
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.
Belinda Nip
Senior Accountant
Katherine Park
Vice President
Kathy Park is vice president of NCCD, based in Madison, WI. As vice president, Kathy coordinates programmatic efforts and organizational operations across NCCD’s offices in Madison; Jacksonville, FL; and Oakland, CA. She provides direct oversight and support for the program and policy, research and data services, technology, and communications teams in the Midwest office, including the Children’s Research Center and SafeMeasures. Kathy has devoted her entire professional career to making a difference in the lives of adults and children impacted by abuse and neglect. Her experience includes provision of direct services, technical assistance and training, research, and policy in child and adult protection. In 1992, inspired by a desire to prevent youth from escalating within and across the child welfare-juvenile justice-adult corrections systems, she began working as a child protective services front-line investigator with the Georgia Department of Human Resources, then went on to work in ongoing family preservation, supervision of a blended child and adult protection unit, and at the state’s protective services policy unit. In 2000, she joined the NCCD and has worked in partnership with numerous state and local social service agencies across the United States and internationally on the development and implementation of Structured Decision Making® (SDM) decision-support systems for child welfare, adult protection, and economic support programs to improve reliability, validity, and equity of assessment practices. She has a B.A. in psychology and a M.A. in organizational management.
Vanessa Patino
Senior Researcher
Vanessa Patino Lydia is a Senior Researcher 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 Manager
Renee Plog is the Communications Manager for NCCD and has been with NCCD since 2004. Renee oversees NCCD’s communications efforts thereby developing and maintaining a positive external relationship with NCCD's constituents and the media. Renee is responsible for the preparation of publications, newsletters, press releases, and website content. She also oversees NCCD’s PASS Awards and Special Recognition Awards programs, and provides support for agency development activities. Renee has a BS in Aquatic Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to NCCD, her employment experience includes marketing for a dot com startup company and photography.
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.
Jessica Roa
Senior Research Associate
Sean Taylor
Invoicing Specialist
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.
Associate Director of Research
Dr. Angela M. Wolf is the Associate Director of Research at NCCD. Dr. Wolf has over 15 years of experience in community-based program evaluation and public policy research and has directed research and program work on the prevention of gang violence, policing, child abuse exposed to trauma, intimate partner violence, offender treatment programs, and female offenders. She has authored peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other publications on juvenile offending, incarcerated women and girls, and domestic violence.
Dr. Wolf has extensive experience with issues related to youth violence and crime. She currently directs all of NCCD’s gang work, including the California Cities Gang Prevention Network, a network of California cities committed to developing and implementing comprehensive, strategic plans targeting gang violence. Each city’s plan must represent a balanced approach emphasizing prevention, intervention, and enforcement, as well as reentry components. Dr. Wolf’s role includes intensive collaboration with cities’ interdisciplinary teams, which are required to involve both law enforcement leadership and community voices. Additionally, as part of this project, NCCD identifies promising approaches to reducing gang-related violence in the fields of law enforcement, social services, and reentry, and supports the cities to implement these approaches in their plans. Now heading into its fifth year, the Network is well positioned to affect gang-related policy at the local, state, and national levels. In addition, Dr. Wolf recently received a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to develop training curriculum for law enforcement on issues related to youth violence and gang involvement in immigrant communities. In this multi-site project, she will work with local police, community-based organizations, and youth to tailor trainings to law enforcement, parents, and an array of community stakeholders.
Dr. Wolf has also done significant work on treatment efforts in criminal justice facilities. She is a co-author of an Integrated Behavior Treatment Model (IBTM) written under the direction of court-appointed experts, as required in the lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The goal of this project is to develop a model that is effective with and appropriate for DJJ’s population of older, serious, and violent offenders, and importantly, was evidence-based and in alignment with current best practices. Dr. Wolf was responsible for collaborating with a variety of stakeholders and leading a workgroup to build support for the model.
Dr. Wolf’s other research interests include programming and policies supporting children exposed to violence and trauma. She conducted the recent evaluation of a San Francisco police protocol directing law enforcement officers in practices supporting children of arrested parents. In this capacity, she worked closely with leadership to implement the protocol and to develop training strategies for officers.
Dr. Wolf’s recent gender-specific projects include the California Women in Prison Study, which examined women in prison in California with a special emphasis on health care; the Florida Girls Study, a project examining girls in the juvenile justice system, which assisted the state of Florida in closing their largest facility for girls; and the Delaware Girls Initiative, a project working with key leaders and stakeholders to implement a research-based, comprehensive strategy for girls in the juvenile justice system in Delaware.
Dr. Wolf possesses considerable experience directing national, multisite research and technical assistance efforts. Specifically, she served as the principal investigator for the OJJDP-funded National Evaluation of Parents Anonymous®, the only federally funded child abuse prevention program in the United States. Through evaluating a network of community-based social support groups, this longitudinal research project assessed the effectiveness of Parents Anonymous in reducing child abuse. Other multisite efforts 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.