Jeanette is a principal research scientist in the Economics, Justice & Society department at NORC at the University of Chicago. Her research applies rigorous mixed-methods designs that integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine public safety and criminal justice systems, including criminal courts and processes, public defense, and human trafficking. Her work includes large-scale survey development and implementation, evaluability and implementation studies, program and policy evaluation, and qualitative data collection and analysis.

Jeanette’s research is grounded in partnerships with federal, state, and local agencies and practitioner organizations, with a focus on producing policy-relevant evidence. She incorporates trauma-informed research methods and ethical data-collection practices to ensure that study designs and findings reflect the perspectives of justice-involved individuals, victims of crime, and affected families and communities, while maintaining methodological rigor and data quality.

She has conducted research on behalf of multiple federal agencies, including the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the Office for Victims of Crime, as well as state and local governments and philanthropic organizations. Her recent work includes co-leading evaluations of local and state task force efforts to combat human trafficking and community violence intervention and prevention programs in Pennsylvania, as well as research on nexus crimes, including intersections between criminal and civil legal systems and human trafficking-related offenses. She also co-leads the first BJS-funded Survey of Public Defenders and the Census of Public Defender Offices, supporting the development of standardized, nationally representative data on public defense systems.

Jeanette has served as lead author on numerous peer-reviewed publications and federally funded research reports. Prior to joining NORC, she was a senior researcher at the Urban Institute, where she managed a portfolio of studies focused on public defense, human trafficking, and victimization. Earlier in her career, she worked as an assistant director at a Chicago-based social service agency, experience that informs her applied research perspective and attention to ethical, field-informed study design.