Rachel Swaner

Rachel Swaner is the Research Director at the Center for Court Innovation. She is currently the principal investigator on an evaluation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'' Minority Youth Violence Prevention program; PI on a mixed-methods study of police legitimacy and the criminal justice system in Newark, NJ and Cleveland, OH; co-PI on an exploratory study of sex work and human trafficking in NYC; and co-PI on a study of gun carrying among NY youth. She recently led the evaluation of the Defending Childhood Initiative, a federal initiative to address children''s exposure to violence in six cities and on two tribal reservations; was the project director of a study on youth who trade sex; and was co-PI of an evaluation of a public health approach to reducing gun violence in New York State. She was previously a researcher and evaluator at Harlem Children''s Zone. She is on the advisory board for the Participatory Budgeting Project. Rachel received her PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center, and her Bachelor of Science and Master of Public Administration from New York University, and has been teaching at Wagner since 2007.

Areas of Expertise

Cities

Criminal Justice

Education

Evaluation

Inequality

Policy Analysis

Politics

Poverty

Power

Public & Nonprofit Organizations

Race, Class, Gender & Diversity

Social Policy

Urban Policy