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Vera's Management Team
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Michael P. Jacobson
Director, Vera Institute of Justice
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3163
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Michael P. Jacobson joined Vera as its fourth director in January 2005. Before then he was a professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. A Ph.D. in sociology, he was the New York City Correction Commissioner from 1995 to 1998 and the City's Probation Commissioner from 1992 to 1996. Prior to that, he worked in the New York City Office of Management and Budget from 1984 to 1992 where he was the Deputy Budget Director. He is the author of Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration (New York University Press 2005). He serves as chair of the New York City Criminal Justice Agency.
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Karen Goldstein
Vice President & General Counsel, Legal Department
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3144
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Karen Goldstein joined Vera in August 2000. In addition to serving as General Counsel, she is also the Institute's Vice President. Previously, she served as general counsel for the New York City Department of Homeless Services and as general counsel to Miracle Makers, Inc., a community-based nonprofit corporation in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She has also assisted the Hon. Kathryn McDonald in the administration of the Family Courts; served as deputy general counsel to the New York City Human Resources Administration; and worked as a trial attorney for the Legal Aid Society's Juvenile Rights Division and as a Senior Supervising Attorney for the Society's Criminal Appeals Bureau. Karen has a J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
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Daniel F. Wilhelm
Vice President & Chief Program Officer, Vera Institute of Justice
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3073
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As chief program officer, Daniel F. Wilhelm supervises all of Vera's centers and programs. He also oversees the Institute's communications and development efforts. Formerly as director of technical assistance, Dan guided how Vera worked with local, state, and national government officials and oversaw the Institute's federal relations. From 2002 to early 2006, Dan directed Vera's State Sentencing and Corrections Program; he joined the Institute in 2001 as that program's associate director. Previously Dan practiced as a litigator in the New York office of Sidley & Austin and served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn, NY. Dan has testified before commissions and legislative committees in some 20 states on criminal justice matters. He is co-author of the Vera publication Is the Budget Crisis Changing the Way We Look at Sentencing and Incarceration? and has written on justice issues for the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Corrections Today, the American Bar Association, and the American Journal of International Law. Dan is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, Harvard Divinity School, and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
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Tina Chiu
Director, Technical Assistance
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3038
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Tina Chiu serves as director of technical assistance, guiding Vera’s centers and programs in providing support to local, state, and national government officials. She was previously the deputy director of technical assistance. Tina joined Vera in 1999 as a senior program associate and has worked with jurisdictions and policymakers on a variety of issues, including police-immigrant relations, prison conditions, juvenile justice and youth development, adult sentencing and corrections, and responses to domestic violence. Before coming to Vera, Tina was a research associate at Columbia University, specializing in community economic development and geographic information systems analysis. She has a B.A. in liberal arts from St. John's College, an M.A. in history and philosophy of science
from the University of Chicago, and an M.S. in urban planning from Columbia University.
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Megan Golden
Director, Planning and Government Innovation
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3052
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Megan Golden, who is currently the director of planning and government innovation, joined the Institute in 1992 as a Skadden Fellow at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, then a Vera project. In 1994 she was awarded a White House Fellowship. Megan returned to Vera a year later to plan the Appearance Assistance Program, which she directed from 1996 - 1998. She became director of planning in June of 1999. Previously, Megan helped the New York City Board of Elections modernize its operations. She has a B.A. in political science from Brown University and a J.D. from New York University Law School.
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Neil Weiner
Director, Research Department
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3071
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Neil Weiner joined Vera in February 2007 as its research director. Neil had been at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 25 years, where he was a senior research investigator at the School of Social Policy and Practice. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Urban Systems Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He was senior research associate on the National Academy of Science's Panel on Understanding and Preventing Violent Behavior and was a visiting fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. Neil’s research interests include criminal and juvenile justice, social protection, justice and welfare, trajectories of individual violent-criminal careers, situations in which violence occurs and escalates, historical patterns in violent crime, the classification and management of risk, evaluation of juvenile justice and child-welfare programs and operations, disparities in death sentencing, criminological theory, public-policy formulation and evaluation, and research methods.
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Ernest Duncan
Chief Operating Officer/ Chief Financial Officer, Vera Institute of Justice
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e-mail:
tel: (212) 376-3054
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As chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Vera Institute of Justice, Ernest provides practical, hands-on management to the organization. Over the past 15 years, Ernest has helped non-for-profit organizations focus on the particular issues of governance, fiscal infrastructure, and human resources that directly impact organizations’ continuing success. His experience encompasses internal control reviews, risk assessments, and organizational development. Past organizations Ernest has worked with include Wildcat Service Corporation, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Museum of African American History, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Ernest serves on the board of directors of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and is past treasurer of Family Justice, Inc. Other memberships include the American Institute of CPAs and New York State Society of CPAs and its Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee. Ernest is a life member of the National Black MBA Association and is past president of the Nashville chapter. Ernest earned a B.S. in accounting from the Culverhouse of Accountancy at the University of Alabama, an M.B.A. in strategic management and public policy from George Washington University, and a D.B.A. in management and leadership from the University of Phoenix.
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Alex Busansky
Director, Washington DC Office
Executive Director, Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons
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e-mail:
tel: (202) 347-5193
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Alexander Busansky is a former prosecutor who began his career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 1987. Over 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 he left New York City to work for the U.S. Department of Justice, becoming a trial attorney within the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division. 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. In 2002, he was detailed to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming counsel to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). In that role, he developed strategies to address the USA PATRIOT Act, drafted legislation concerning the use of excessive force by U.S. Custom agents, developed the Anti-Gang Act, and addressed other law enforcement and homeland security issues.
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