Robin S. Engel, PhD, a nationally known and highly respected criminologist, has served as a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Director of the Center for Police Research and Policy. From 2015 to 2019, she served as UC’s Vice President for Safety and Reform, where her administrative duties included oversight of daily operations and implementation of comprehensive police reforms in the aftermath of a critical incident involving the fatal police shooting of an unarmed motorist.
For more than two decades, Dr. Engel has worked to engage in policing research designed to reduce harm in communities and make police-citizen encounters safer, promoting best practices through academic-practitioner partnerships. She has served as Principal Investigator for over ninety studies and projects and was ranked among the top academics in the field of criminal justice/criminology based on publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Engel currently serves as a governor-appointed member of the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board, co-chair of the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Research Advisory Committee, and member of the National Policing Institute’s Council on Policing Reforms and Race. Dr. Engel currently leads research teams implementing and evaluating violence reduction, police training, and police reform initiatives across dozens of cities, along with a large-scale evaluation of state-mandated police reforms.
As a top scholar and a trusted, leading authority in police science, Dr. Engel brings valuable expertise, strategy, and thought leadership to NPI, further enabling us to bring about positive and evidence-informed changes and improvements to policing and public safety in communities nationwide. “On behalf of NPI’s Board of Directors and staff, we are proud to welcome Dr. Engel and her team to NPI,” said James Burch, NPI’s President. NPI’s Board Chair, Ronal Serpas, PhD of Loyola University, added, “We are proud to welcome such a prestigious scholar to NPI who will help us to lead the way in advancing policing in an independent and non-partisan manner as our mission requires.”
As the Senior Vice President of NPI, Dr. Engel will provide leadership and oversight of NPI’s scientific investments and strategy and NPI’s work to translate and integrate research into practices.
