Alison Shames
Associate Director, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: ashames@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3075
Alison Shames joined Vera in January 2008 as the associate director of Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections. Most recently, Alison worked in Sydney, Australia, where she served as executive officer to the Committee of Criminal Justice CEOs in the attorney general’s Department of New South Wales. Before that, Alison was the state copyright manager for the state of New South Wales. From 2002 through 2005, Alison was corporate counsel for Fairfax Media, one of Australia’s largest media companies. Alison also worked for several years as a corporate associate with a law firm in San Francisco. Immediately following law school, Alison clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Vance in New Orleans. Alison has a B.A from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Adrienne Austin
Program Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: aaustin@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3047
Adrienne joined Vera in July 2008 as program associate in the Center on Sentencing and Corrections. Prior to joining Vera, Adrienne spent three years as a staff attorney at Bronx Defenders, where she represented indigent clients in criminal matters. A Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar, Adrienne graduated with a JD from New York University School of Law in 2005. Throughout her law school career, Adrienne interned at a number of social justice organizations including the Legal Aid Society, Advocates for Children, and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. She served as a summer law clerk at the Public Defender Service in Washington, DC. Adrienne holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from University of California Los Angeles, where she was a UCLA Law Fellow.
Reagan Daly
Senior Research Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: rdaly@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-5206
Reagan joined Vera in August 2007 as a senior research associate in the Center on Sentencing & Corrections. She received her BA in sociology from Franklin and Marshall College and her PHD. in criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Vera, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania where she worked on a number of projects, including the development of an evidence-based system of probation in Philadelphia and a randomized controlled trial testing the effect of restorative justice conferences in England. Her dissertation was a network analysis of 16,000 adjudicated juveniles in Philadelphia, and she has worked for the last five years on an Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention-sponsored project to explain past trends and predict future trends in juvenile violence.
Bruce Frederick
Senior Research Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: bfrederick@vera.org
Bruce joined Vera in March 2008 as a senior research associate in the Center on Sentencing and Corrections. He received his BA in psychology from Utica College and his PhD in educational psychology and statistics from the State University of New York at Albany. From 1981 through 2003, Bruce served as chief of the Bureau of Research and Evaluation at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). From 2004 until just prior to joining Vera, he served as chief of the DCJS Offender Management Analysis Unit, supervising a group of researchers and policy analysts specializing in issues relating to criminal justice correctional programs. Prior to his career at DCJS, he also worked at the New York State Division for Youth, evaluating education programs for youth placed in state custody, and briefly at the New York State Division of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, assisting in the development of data systems for monitoring treatment programs. In the past few years, Bruce's research has focused on studies of the factors affecting recidivism among delinquent youth and adult offenders, development and validation of risk and needs assessment instruments, and a study examining how the effects of length of drug treatment and program completion vary with age, gender, and risk levels of the clients.
Maggie Peck
Program Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: mpeck@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3094
Before joining Vera in June 2007, Maggie worked at the Midtown Community Court. As the director of workforce development, she managed the court’s onsite job training program for individuals with criminal records, and as the community initiatives planner, she served as a liaison between community stakeholders and the court’s operations. Maggie received a BA in English literature and language from the University of Michigan and is an M.P.A. candidate at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.
Christine Scott-Hayward
Research Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: cscott-hayward@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3053
Christine Scott-Hayward joined Vera in August 2006 as a research analyst for the Center on Sentencing and Corrections. She received an undergraduate degree in law from University College Dublin in Ireland and an MA in social science from the University of Chicago. She is also a member of the New York Bar. Christine previously worked for Vera as an intern on the Fragmentation and Ferment project. She is currently a PHD. candidate at New York University’s Institute for Law and Society, focusing on desistance from crime.
Barbara Tombs
Senior Fellow, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: btombs@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3176
Prior to joining Vera, Barbara Tombs was the executive director of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Before directing the Minnesota commission, Barbara was the executive director of the Kansas Sentencing Commission from 1995 to 2003. The commission developed a number of innovations during her tenure that garnered national attention, including breakthroughs in the areas of drug policy and community corrections oversight. She has served as president of the National Association of State Sentencing Commissions and began her career as a research analyst at the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Barbara has undergraduate and graduate degrees in the administration of justice from Pennsylvania State University.
Tracy Velázquez
Senior Program Associate, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: tvelazquez@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3085
Tracy Velázquez joined Vera in March 2008 as senior program associate of Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections. Tracy has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a Master of Public Administration from Montana State University. Tracy has experience both in public policy development and in providing training and technical assistance to public and private agencies and organizations. While Tracy has lived and worked in Dallas, Boston, and San Francisco, she comes to Vera from Montana, where she owned a consulting agency and worked on criminal justice issues as they relate to individuals with mental illnesses. She served as an adjunct professor in political science at Montana State University and understands the political process well through her prior involvement as a lobbyist, elected party official, and candidate for statewide public office.
Michael Woodruff
Coordinator, Center on Sentencing and Corrections
e-mail: mwoodruff@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3035
Michael Woodruff joined Vera in May 2008 as coordinator for the Center on Sentencing and Corrections. He earned his BA in philosophy and psychology from Clark University where he held various leadership roles on campus, including president of Student Council and administrative orientation coordinator for the university’s new student program. Michael also served as an Everett Public Service Intern with New York Cares, a community engagement organization where he became interested in joining the nonprofit sector.