Dr. Nancy La Vigne

Nancy La Vigne was appointed by President Biden as Director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research and technology arm of the U.S Department of Justice, on March 28, 2022.  A nationally recognized criminal justice policy expert, Dr. La Vigne’s research expertise ranges from policing and corrections reform to reentry from prison, criminal justice technologies and evidence-based criminal justice practices. Prior to joining NIJ, she served as executive director of the Council on Criminal Justice’s Task Force on Policing. Before that, La Vigne served as vice president at the Urban Institute (Urban), a nonprofit social policy research organization based in Washington, D.C., where over the course of a decade, she directed Urban’s Justice Policy Center. Her tenure at Urban included serving as executive director of the congressionally-mandated bipartisan Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections Reform.

Dr. La Vigne is not new to NIJ, having been the founding director of the Institute’s Crime Mapping Research Center several years ago, as well as serving as special assistant to Office of Justice Program’s Acting Assistant Attorney General. She holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Rutgers University-Newark, a master’s degree in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School at the University of Texas-Austin and a bachelor’s degree in government and economics from Smith College.