Robin Engel

Robin S. Engel joined the John Glenn College of Public Affairs as a senior research scientist following over 25 years in academic positions at the University of Cincinnati and the Pennsylvania State University. She received her doctorate from the School of Criminal Justice, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University of Albany, State University of New York. From 2015 to 2019, she served as vice president for safety and reform at the University of Cincinnati, where her role included executive oversight of public safety operations and successful implementation of comprehensive police reforms. Other previous positions include director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Police Research and Policy and senior vice president at the National Policing Institute.

Engel has spent her career generating and testing evidence-based police practices, transforming police agencies through reform efforts, and reducing crime and violence in our most vulnerable communities. As an award-winning researcher, she has partnered with dozens of police agencies and communities in the U.S. and internationally, served as principal investigator for over 100 funded research studies and projects totaling over $31 million in external funding, and was previously ranked among the top academics nationally in criminal justice/criminology based on publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.

Engel is a senior advisor for 21st Century Policing Solutions; a four-time governor-appointed member of the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board; consultant on police training for the Ohio Attorney General; and former co-chair of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Research Advisory Committee. Her team’s work in violence reduction led to participation in meetings at the White House and 10 Downing Street and was honored with the 2008 IACP/Motorola Webber Seavey Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement, the 2009 IACP/West Award for Excellence in Criminal Investigations, and the 2008 National Criminal Justice Association’s Outstanding Criminal Justice Program Award. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University at Albany in 2017 and the 2022 O.W. Wilson Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

As a top scholar and trusted leading authority in police science, Engel continues to engage in research designed to make police-citizen encounters safer, reduce harm and promote best practices through academic-practitioner partnerships that translate and integrate research into practice