Bio
Dr. Jennifer Calnon Cherkauskas is the Director of Policing Research for the Policing Division at the National Policing Institute. She joined the National Policing Institute as a Senior Research Associate in September 2022. Dr. Cherkauskas previously worked as a Senior Research Associate and a Research Consultant at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) / UC Center for Police Research and Policy. She served for three years as the project manager for the University of Cincinnati Police Division’s voluntary monitorship, which included comprehensive department reforms to policy, training, supervision, use of force, traffic stops, data collection and analysis, recruitment, and hiring. Over the last twenty years, she has served as project manager for state-wide, multi-year research projects with the Pennsylvania State Police and the Arizona Department of Public Safety. She currently works with police agencies across the country as part of multiple research projects that are examining police use of force, traffic stops, and violence reduction. Dr. Cherkauskas earned her Ph.D. in Crime, Law, and Justice from The Pennsylvania State University in 2011 with a dissertation focused on examining differences in driving behavior as it relates to traffic stop study benchmarks.
Areas of Focus
- Police officer decision-making
- Police organizations
- Evaluations of police training
- Campus policing
- Mixed-methods research