Staff
Patricia Van Voorhis
Patricia Van Voorhis, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. She received her doctorate degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York at Albany, and served on the faculty of the Department of Criminology at Indiana State University prior to assuming her current position at UC. Dr. Van Voorhis has published extensively in the leading criminology and criminal justice journals and is the author of Psychological Classification of the Adult, Male Prison Inmate, and lead author of Correctional Counseling and Rehabilitation, currently in its 7th edition. She has provided expertise to federal, state and local agencies on topics pertaining to correctional effectiveness, program implementation, evaluation techniques, women offenders, risk assessment and correctional classification. She is the former deputy editor of Justice Quarterly, and the co-founder of the Division of Sentencing and Corrections of the American Society of Criminology. She is an elected Executive Counselor of the American Society of Criminology and a member of the Board of Directors for the International Community Corrections Association. Dr. Van Voorhis was also recently elected a fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology and has received the Simon Dinitz Research Award from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction as well as the Marguerite Q. Warren and Ted B. Palmer Differential and Individualized Intervention Award. In August of 2009, she also received Volunteers of America's Maud Booth Award for correctional reform. She has directed numerous federal and state-funded research projects on inmate classification, gender-responsive assessment, program implementation, cognitive-behavioral interventions, and correctional effectiveness. She recently concluded a federally-funded, multi-site study of the risk factors for female recidivism.
Ashley Bauman
Ashley Bauman received her M.S. in Criminal Justice in 2005 and her M.B.A in 2012 from the University of Cincinnati. She currently serves as a Research Associate for the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute and as the Project Manager on the Women's Risk Needs Assessment Project. She trains correctional agencies on a number of topics including the Women’s Risk/Needs Assessment, the Level of Service Inventory – Revised, Gender-Responsive Principles and Practice, Motivational Interviewing and Supervisory Practices in Treatment-Oriented Agencies. In addition, she creates custom training curricula for state agencies. Ms. Bauman also provides technical assistance to agencies implementing risk/needs assessments, gender-responsive practices, and other best practices. She works to connect research and practice, helping agencies to implement research results into practical applications. Her research interests include risk/need assessments, gender-specific practices, correctional rehabilitation, and organizational and policy issues in corrections.
Valerie Bell
Valerie Bell received her doctorate degree in Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. She holds an assistant professor position at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. She is a past managing editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. She has co-authored articles published in Criminal Justice Studies, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and Justice Quarterly. Her current research interests include mental health in corrections, Victimology, women in corrections, risk assessment, and Supreme Court law.
Rachel Brushett
Rachel A. Brushett, Ph.D. graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2013 and is now an Advanced Research Analyst with the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance. As a doctoral student, she was a Research Associate working on the National Institute of Corrections/University of Cincinnati Women's Risk Needs Assessment Project and the Gender Responsive Assessment and Implementation in the Connecticut Department of Corrections Project. She was also Project Coordinator for the Gender Responsive Assessment in the Cook County (IL) Department of Corrections Project. Her areas of interest and research include program implementation and evaluation, corrections in special populations (women, juveniles, and minorities), risk/needs assessment and classification, and correctional rehabilitation.
Krista Gehring
Krista Gehring received her Master’s of Science from Northeastern University in Boston in 2003. After receiving her master’s degree, she taught at Northeastern University, the University of Northern Colorado, and Metropolitan State College of Denver as an adjunct professor. Ms. Gehring entered into the doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati in 2006 and was offered a teaching assistantship. Her research interests include gender-responsive programming, risk and need factors, and assessments; gendered pathways to crime; correctional rehabilitation; and the connection between relationship dysfunction and criminality for women offenders.
Brittany Groot
Emily Salisbury
Emily J. Salisbury, Ph.D. graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2007 and is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Criminology and Criminal Justice within the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. She is currently Editor of Criminal Justice and Behavior, a peer-review journal affiliated with the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology. Her areas of interest and research include corrections, correctional rehabilitation, risk/needs assessment and classification, and gendered pathways of offending behavior. In addition to her work with the WRNA, Dr. Salisbury also recently developed an identification and diversion protocol in Clark County Juvenile Court (Vancouver, WA) for youth victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
Emily Wright
Emily Wright received her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 2008 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. While at UC, she worked on the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment Project. Her research involves victimization and exposure to violence and effective correctional responses to female offenders. Her work on female offenders examines the policy implications of gender-responsive classification and programming in women’s correctional settings.