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Biographies JOYCE N. THOMAS, R.N., M.P.H., P.H.P. Joyce N. Thomas, R.N., M.P.H., P.H.P., is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in cultural competency, ethnic minority, and racial concerns in the field of victimization. Ms. Thomas is a Registered Nurse who received a bachelor's degree from the College of Holy Names in Oakland, California, a master's degree in Public Health Administration from the University of California School of Public Health in Berkeley, California, and a certification as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ms. Thomas serves as Project Director for numerous grants and contracts that address cross-cultural concerns. She is the Director of the People of Color Leadership Institute. She is a Program Administrator, a national and international specialist on all aspects of child maltreatment, and is cofounder and President of the Center for Child Protection and Family Support, Inc., of Washington, D.C. Ms. Thomas is the former staff Director of the Prevention Committee for the White House Conference for a Drug Free America. She is the former Director of the Division of Child Protection of Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Ms. Thomas is a member of the Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Executive Session, "New Paradigms for Child Protective Service." She is the former President of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and also serves on the boards of Defense for Children International; City Lights of Washington, D.C.; and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She lectures at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, Howard University School of Social Work, Spelman College, and numerous other institutions of higher learning. Terence P. Thornberry, Ph.D., is a Professor and former Dean at the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, State University of New York. Before moving to Albany, he was a Faculty Member at the University of Georgia and the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Thornberry received his master's degree in Criminology and his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of a number of books, including The Criminally Insane and From Boy to Man -- From Delinquency to Crime, and numerous articles and book chapters. Professor Thornberry is currently the Director of the Rochester Youth Development Study, an ongoing panel study examining the causes and correlates of serious delinquency and drug use. Professor Thornberry is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Bar Association's Gavel Award Certificate of Merit and the President's Award for Excellence in Research at the University at Albany. He is also a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology. Patricia McFall Torbet is a Senior Research Associate at the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. NCJJ is the research division of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Ms. Torbet first came to the center in 1976 as a Graduate Intern while earning a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, then returned to a full-time staff position in 1980. At NCJJ, Ms. Torbet directs an OJJDP-funded effort to provide technical assistance to juvenile courts and probation departments. The project's goals include responding to requests from the field, implementing special initiatives that respond to deficits in the field, and maintaining an automated database and resource center of a broad base of working, research, and reference materials. As Project Director, Ms. Torbet oversees the delivery of a full range of technical assistance resources, including special initiatives in the areas of juvenile probation and onsite and cross-site consultations. Jeremy Travis is Director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Travis has served in this position since 1994, initiating a broad agenda in all of the Institute's mission areas. Previously, as Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, New York City Police Department, Mr. Travis served as Advisor to the Police Commissioner, as the department's General Counsel, and oversaw the Legal Bureau, the License Division, and the Criminal Justice Bureau. Mr. Travis developed the award-winning Civil Enforcement Initiative, which provided lawyers as counsel to police precincts. He authored New York City's ban on assault weapons, introduced new technologies into the arrest process, and drafted the department's quality-of-life strategy to reclaim the city's public spaces. As chair of the Chancellor's Advisory Panel on School Safety, Mr. Travis developed a proposal for a new approach to school violence. In previous positions, Mr. Travis served as Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice for the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and in various advisory and management capacities for New York City. In addition to his many consulting and research positions, Mr. Travis' strong legal and criminal justice experience includes serving as Executive Director for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency and Executive Director for the Victim/Witness Assistance Project for the Vera Institute of Justice. Mr. Travis has written extensively and has taught courses on criminal justice, public policy, and history at the New York University School of Law, and Yale College. He received a jurum doctor, cum laude, from the New York University School of Law; a master's degree in Public Administration from the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; and a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Yale College. He was a member of the Law Review and has received many honors and awards. Cathy Trost is Director of the Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families, a national resource for journalists who cover children and family issues. Its mission is to enhance reporting about the issues and institutions affecting disadvantaged children and their families and to increase public awareness about the concerns facing at-risk children. The center operates out of the University of Maryland College of Journalism and is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Nation's largest philanthropy dedicated exclusively to improving the futures of disadvantaged children. Before becoming Director of the center, Ms. Trost was a journalist for nearly 20 years. For 9 years she worked as a reporter with the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal, covering urban affairs and housing, labor and workforce issues, and children and family issues. Before that, she was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and United Press International. Ms. Trost is the author of Elements of Risk, a book about the chemical industry. She is a past recipient of an Alicia Patterson Foundation journalism fellowship and currently serves on the Patterson Foundation's Board of Directors. Manolo "Manny" Vidal is a cofounder and partner of Vidal, Reynardus & Moya, a marketing firm. He and his partners have developed techniques to target the virtually untapped Hispanic market. Clients include AVON, NYNEX Long Distance, McDonald's, and Quaker Oats. Mr. Vidal started his marketing career in brand management at Revlon and also headed the merchandising/sales department of Dannon in New York. He started his promotions career at Font & Vaamond Advertising, where he launched Coors Company after a 10-year market boycott in New York. Mr. Vidal was named President of the National Hispanic Merchandising Group in New York in 1988. He has won several promotional awards, including the Se Habla Español "Best Promotion" in the Hispanic Market. He received a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Jo-Ann Wallace is Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Before becoming Director, she was Deputy Chief of the Appellate Division. She previously served as a Staff Attorney and as Coordinator for the agency's Juvenile Services Program, which provides advocacy for children incarcerated in District of Columbia detention facilities. Ms. Wallace, a graduate of New York University Law School, currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA). She is Chairperson of NLADA's Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Defender Service, and a member of the Defender Council. She is a member of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Standards Committee. In 1994, Ms. Wallace founded the District of Columbia Appellate Practice Institute. She previously served as Chairperson and continues to serve as a Lecturer for the District of Columbia Appellate Practice Institute. She is a member of the visiting faculty for the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School. Janet I. Warren, D.S.W., is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia's Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. Her responsibilities include the assessment of defendants charged with serious felonies, development of training on sexual offenders, juvenile transfer and threat assessment, and maintenance of a statewide system that tracks all forensic evaluations conducted in Virginia each year. Dr. Warren is Coprincipal Investigator on a grant that is studying the violent juvenile offender and on another grant that is examining and creating crime-analytic systems for responding to campus and workplace violence. For several years, she has been involved in research on serial rape and serial murder. Since 1986, she has been a Consultant to the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit, and she currently serves as the University of Virginia Liaison with the unit. She is a member of the OJJDP Mental Health Advisory Board and a member of the Virginia Crime Commission's Task Force, which is studying the registration, assessment, and community notification of sex offenders. She has been published in the areas of serial violent crime, the spatial and temporal assessment of crime patterns, and the nature and impact of forensic evaluation. Cathy Spatz Widom is currently Professor of Criminal Justice and Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany. A graduate of Cornell and Brandeis Universities, she is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She has taught previously at Harvard and Indiana Universities and served on editorial boards of criminology and psychology journals. Ms. Widom has authored or coauthored numerous articles and book chapters, and she received the 1989 American Association for the Advancement of Science Behavioral Science Research Prize for her paper on the cycle of violence. Since 1986, Ms. Widom has been investigating the long-term consequences of early childhood physical and sexual abuse and neglect. Jesse E. Williams, Jr. currently serves as Deputy Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Division of Juvenile Justice Services. He is responsible for the management of the city's juvenile justice services, and the implementation of systems reforms in conjunction with the Family Court and other stakeholders in the system. He is also responsible for overall policy, planning, budget, and management of the Department of Human Services as a member of the Commissioner's executive staff. Before coming to Philadelphia, he served as the Administrator of the Youth Services Administration in Washington, D.C.; Assistant Secretary for Administration for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; and Deputy Director of the Maryland Juvenile Services Administration. Mr. Williams is currently President of the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators. He is an active member of the American Correctional Association, a former member of the Board of the Philadelphia Police Athletic League, and past President of the Middle Atlantic States Correctional Association. He has been honored by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Family Court Division, for excellence in juvenile justice, and named in Who's Who in the Delaware Valley. Mr. Williams received a master's degree in Education from Coppin State College and a bachelor's degree from Morgan State University. He has been awarded a certificate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for the successful completion of its program for senior executives in State and local governments. John J. Wilson is Deputy Administrator for OJJDP. He served as Senior Counsel to OJJDP from 1974 until 1992, when he became its full-time Legal Counsel. He also served as Acting Administrator and later was appointed as Deputy Administrator by the Attorney General. Before coming to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mr. Wilson was a Program Administrator and Caseworker at the Michigan Department of Social Services. He served as a member of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Juvenile Court Committee from 1986 to 1992, serving the final 3 years as the Committee's Chair. He has lectured and taught courses in the legal rights of children, juvenile justice, and family law, and has been published in the Children's Legal Rights Journal, the Juvenile and Family Court Journal, and Corrections Today. He coauthored OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (1993) and is an Editor of A Sourcebook: Serious, Violent and Chronic Offenders (1995). Mr. Wilson has a bachelor's degree in History-Economics from the University of Michigan, a master's degree in Business Administration in Management from Wayne State University, and a jurum doctor from the Detroit College of Law. Gina E. Wood was appointed Director for the Concentration of Federal Efforts Program, OJJDP, in May 1995. As Director, Ms. Wood is responsible for assisting the Administrator of OJJDP in implementing overall policy and developing objectives and priorities for all Federal juvenile delinquency programs and activities related to prevention, diversion training, treatment, rehabilitation, evaluation, research, and improvement of the juvenile justice system in the United States. This includes serving as Staff Director for the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention chaired by the Attorney General, designing and directing studies and surveys implemented by the Coordinating Council, developing recommendations from the Administrator and Attorney General to the President and Congress, managing all joint funding agreements between OJJDP and other Federal agencies, and managing the overall Peer Review Program and consultant pool of experts. In addition, Ms. Wood coordinates OJJDP's efforts to reduce youth involvement with drugs, including alcohol and tobacco use. Prior to her current position, Ms. Wood served the State of Oregon for 8 years in various roles including Legislative Assistant to the Administrator for Adult and Family Services Division; Regional Liaison to the Governor on children and youth issues; and Federal Program Director for the Oregon Commission on Children and Families. She has served on various community boards in Oregon, including 6 years on the Urban League of Portland and as Chair of the Board; the Private Industry Council as Chair of the Youth Committee, which advises city and county officials on all Job Training Partnership Act priorities and funding recommendations; the Governor's Task Force on Family Law representing children and youth issues; and as Chair of Volunteers of America's Advisory Committee to develop a Parent-Child Development Center for families with children under 3 years old. Ms. Wood attended the University of Missouri where she received a bachelor's degree in Communications. Marianne W. Zawitz has been a member of the staff of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, since 1976. She has been responsible for a wide variety of publications and presentations, including the award-winning Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice and Highlights of 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims. Ms. Zawitz frequently lectures and conducts training sessions on data presentation. Currently, she is responsible for the design and content of the BJS Internet site and is collecting and analyzing data on firearms and crime.
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