People: Board of Directors

Dr. Goff is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the co-founder and executive director for research of the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity. He is an expert in contemporary forms of racial bias and discrimination as well as the intersections of race and gender. He has conducted groundbreaking work exploring the ways in which racial prejudice is not a necessary precondition for racial discrimination. That is, despite the normative conceptualization of racial discrimination—that it stems naturally from prejudiced explicit or implicit attitudes—Dr. Goff’s research demonstrates that contextual factors can facilitate racially unequal outcomes. Dr. Goff’s work has been recognized by NIMH, SPSSI, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He is also the youngest member of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice advisory board for the Center on Race, Crime, and Justice. Dr. Goff has been recognized as a national leader in race and gender discrimination by legal practitioners as well, having served as an expert witness in several prominent regional and national cases. Most recently, Dr. Goff has been recognized as the emerging leader in research on race, gender, and policing. Dr. Goff spent the 2008-2009 academic year as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.  Dr. Goff is the 2009 Early Career Award Recipient for APA’s Division 9 and Division 48.

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Tracie L. Keesee is a Denver Colorado native and 20 year veteran with the Denver Police Department (DPD).  She is the Division Chief of Research, Training and Technology and the co-founder and Executive Director of Operations for the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity.  Her previous assignments include, Patrol Districts 3 and 5 as Commander, Detective in Crimes Against Persons, the Public Information Officer for the Chief, Internal Affairs, the Police Training Academy, the Gang Bureau and Commander of the Information Technology Development Unit.

Dr. Keesee holds a BA in Political Science from Metropolitan State College, Academic certifications in Public Policy and Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver, an MA in Criminal Justice from the University of Colorado at Denver and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver in Intercultural Communications. She is a graduate of the 203rd class of the FBI National Academy, and the 1994 class of the African-American Leadership Institute.

Demonstrating a strong understanding of the need for community partnerships, Dr. Keesee has implemented the following programs: Montebello’s first community store front located in the Villages a Gateway; the literacy program, “The Reading Police;” Law Related Education (officer and teacher teams) in Martin Luther King Middle School, Omar Blair, and Montbello High Schools; Neighborhood Police Officers; Yes I Can Program (Gang Awareness program for youth transitioning from middle to high school); and the Latch Key Kids Project. Dr. Keesee also has an impressive list of publications across several collected anthologies and peer-reviewed scientific journals–all in the area of justice and law enforcement.

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Samuel R. Sommers is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Tufts  University in Medford, Massachusetts.  He received his Ph.D. in  social psychology from the University of Michigan. Broadly  speaking, he is an experimental psychologist who brings a social  cognitive perspective to the study of intergroup interaction and  legal decision-making.  Much of his research focuses on race,  including interests in stereotyping and social judgment, normative  concerns in interracial interactions, and the effects of diversity  on group processes and performance.

Dr. Sommers has published original  experimental research in journals including Psychological Science,  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and  Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Experimental Social  Psychology, Law and Human Behavior, and Social Issues and Policy  Review.  He has testified as an expert witness on racial bias and legal decision-making in murder trial proceedings in Massachusetts,  New Hampshire, and Oregon.  In 2009 he received the Saleem Shah Award for outstanding early career research in psychology and law  from the American Psychology-Law Society.

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Dr. Dovidio is currently a Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Before that, he was a professor at the University of Connecticut and at Colgate University, where he also served as Provost and Dean of the Faculty. Dr. Dovidio has been Editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes and Editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. He is currently Co-Editor of Social Issues and Policy Review. Dr. Dovidio is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the American Psychological Society. Dr. Dovidio served as the President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI, Division 9 of APA), Chair of the Executive Committee of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP, Division 8 of APA). He has published over 200 articles and chapters, is co-author of several books, including Emergency intervention; The Psychology of helping and altruism; The social psychology of prosocial behavior; and Reducing intergroup bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model; as well as co-editor of Prejudice, discrimination, and racism; Power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior; On the nature of prejudice: 50 years after Allport; and Intergroup misunderstandings.

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Dr. Sidanius is a Professor in the departments of Psychology and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Stockholm, Sweden and has taught at several universities in the United States and Europe, including the University of Stockholm, Carnegie-Mellon University, The University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and Princeton University. His primary research interests include the political psychology of gender, intergroup relations, institutional discrimination and the evolutionary psychology of intergroup prejudice.

Dr. Sidanius has authored and published more than 100 scientific papers, and his books include: Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression (1999, Cambridge University Press), Racialized Politics: Values, Ideology, and Prejudice in American Public Opinion (2000, University of Chicago press), Key Readings in Political Psychology (2004, Psychology Press), and The Diversity Challenge: Social Identity and Intergroup Relations on the College Campus (2000, Russell Sage Foundation). Prof. Sidanius has won several awards, including being named as the recipient of the 2006 Harold Lasswell Award for “Distinguished Scientific Contribution in the Field of Political Psychology” awarded by the International Society of Political Psychology. Professor Sidanius was inducted into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.

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Tom R. Tyler is the Macklin Fleming Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. He is also a professor (by courtesy) at the Yale School of Management. He joined the Yale Law faculty in January 2012 as a professor of law and psychology. He was previously a University Professor at New York University, where he taught in both the psychology department and the law school. His research is concerned with designing effective strategies for the administration of justice in the courts and by the police.  Professor Tyler has worked with the court to design procedures for managing the conflicts that come to court in ways that lead to decisions that are accepted by various parties. His work serves as the basis for the currently ongoing efforts to redesign the courts in California as part of the “Procedural fairness in the California Courts” initiative. He has also been active in studying the police and policing models in Chicago, California and New York.  His work argues that legal authorities need to focus their attention around building and maintaining legitimacy among those people over whom they exercise authority.  Legitimacy is important because it both facilitates deference to decisions made by judges and police officers and motivates people to cooperate with the authorities in managing conflicts and fighting crime in their communities.

Professor Tyler received his Ph.D in 1978.  He is the author of several books, including The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice (1988); Trust in Organizations (1996); Social Justice in a Diverse Society (1997); Cooperation in Groups (2000); Trust in the Law (2002) Why People Obey the Law (2006); Legitimacy and Criminal Justice (2007); and Why People Cooperate (2011).

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Dr. Jones-Brown is a professor in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College, City University of New York, and a member of the CUNY doctoral faculty. She is also the director of the John Jay College Center on Race, Crime and Justice. She teaches in the area of criminal law, evidence, jurisprudence, police community relations, sociology of delinquency and perspectives on race and crime; and, is the author or co-editor of three books and numerous academic articles, book chapters and legal commentaries related to these topics. Her book, Race, Crime, and Punishment, which examines the impact of race across multiple criminal justice contexts, won a New York Public Library award in 2001. She is the 2008 recipient of the William Bracey Award from the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the recipient of the 2006 Becky Tatum Excellence Award from the Minority and Women’s Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. Her primary research focuses on the impact of crime, delinquency and the criminal justice system on African American males, particularly, their legal socialization. Two current projects focus on African American women in managerial positions within the criminal justice system, and the use of informants in drug prosecutions in New Jersey.

In addition to her career as an academic, Dr. Jones-Brown has spent more than twenty years involved in criminal justice practice and consulting. Her work has included both institutional and community corrections, juvenile justice programming and a term as minority recruiter and assistant prosecutor in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Since 1997, she has been tracking the role of race in police use of lethal force in non-felony situations.

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David A. Harris is a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.  His research centers on law enforcement and issues of race, accountability, and the rule of law.  Professor Harris is the preeminent authority on racial profiling, and a nationally recognized expert on police practices, police accountability, and search and seizure.  His 2002 book, Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (The New Press) demonstrated that the use of racial or ethnic appearance in police work actually harms police efforts to fight crime.  His work on racial profiling became the basis for the legislation against racial profiling proposed in Congress by Representative John Conyers, and for laws enacted in more than half the states.  His 2005 book, Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing (The New Press) showed that police departments can use preventive tactics to cut crime effectively while respecting the rights of the citizens they protect.  He is the author of numerous articles in academic journals as well as newspapers and magazines.

Professor Harris’s current research included projects on the procurement and use of search warrants in Allegheny County, PA; using GIS mapping to track citizen complaints against police; the use and rejection of scientific research by law enforcement; and enforcement of immigration law by local police agencies.  He is a research associate with the Center for Race and Social Problems at the University of Pittsburgh.

Professor Harris has conducted training for police, from chiefs and commanders to patrol officers, around the country.  He is a former Senior Justice Fellow at the Open Society Institute in New York, and has presented his research in testimony to the U.S. Congress and state legislatures, and to numerous academic and professional groups.  He has discussed his work on the Today Show, National Public Radio, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Dateline NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, and in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Slate.com, and many other news outlets.

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Jack Glaser received his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University in 1999 and joined the faculty of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley in 2000. He is a social psychologist whose primary research interest is in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. He studies these intergroup biases at multiple levels of analysis. For example, he investigates the nonconscious operation of stereotypes and prejudice using modern, computerized methods, and is investigating the implications of such subtle forms of bias for discrimination law and law enforcement. Additionally, Professor Glaser conducts research on a very extreme manifestation of intergroup bias - hate crime - and has carried out analyses of historical data as well as racist rhetoric on the Internet to challenge assumptions about economic predictors of intergroup violence.

Another area of interest is in electoral politics and political ideology. He is specifically interested in the role of emotion (as experienced and expressed) in politics. Most recently, he has initiated research on capital punishment, the effect it has on legal decision making, and how that interacts with defendant race. Professor Glaser teaches courses Quantitative Analysis and Advanced Policy Analysis in the Goldman School’s Master’s in Public Policy program, as well as electives on prejudice and discrimination.  Professor Glaser is involved in training California State judges in the psychology of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, and how they might operate implicitly, and undermine fairness, in the courtroom.

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