Cassandra Ramdath, Ph.D., is the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Innovations in Community Safety. Previously, at the Urban Institute, she led the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative — a five-year $10M movement to redefine corrections nationwide. Before joining Urban, Cassandra was the senior research director at the NYC Board of Correction, overseeing research and policy to reduce jail violence, and a senior research associate at the Center for Court Innovation, spearheading several transformative justice system research and evaluation studies.

Cassandra is a mixed-methods, applied, researcher specializing in applying community-engaged methods to promote equitable social justice outcomes. Her research portfolio focuses on reforming systems through research and policy, examining the intersection between health and justice, studying and implementing procedural fairness, and improving community safety. Being raised in a culturally, ethnically, and economically diverse environment, she is dedicated to advocating for racial justice and empowering communities who have been most harmed by the criminal legal system.

Cassandra earned her bachelor of psychology and criminology at the University of Ottawa, and her master’s studying therapeutic alternatives to incarceration at Bond University, Australia. She completed her doctoral dissertation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York, by studying the neurocognitive effects of brain injuries on adolescents detained on Rikers Island.

Born in Toronto and raised by immigrant parents from Trinidad & Tobago, Cassandra enjoys trying new food, listening to music, spending time by the water, and playing with her two small children.

Contact via email at cassandra.ramdath@georgetown.edu