Anthony Petrosino Senior Research Associate WestEd's Anthony Petrosino specializes in social policy research, with an emphasis in evaluation. His extensive background and training in criminal justice is helping to expand the agency's work in juvenile delinquency. Petrosino serves as Senior Research Associate for Learning Innovations at WestEd and Associate Director of Research for the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands. In the latter role, he helps conduct policy-relevant studies designed to meet research priorities in the region. He also is Co-Investigator of a National Institute of Justice-funded randomized experimental evaluation of a school-based resiliency program, Tribes Learning Communities (Tribes). This experimental study will determine the short-term impact of the program on the behavior and academic progress of California's elementary school students. Prior to joining WestEd's staff, Petrosino served as a research consultant for various education and other institutions. At Harvard University, he worked on a study of how evaluation research influenced decision-making about America's most popular school-based drug prevention program, D.A.R.E. For the Canadian Department of Justice, he reviewed evaluations of programs and services provided to divorced or separated parents. In addition, Petrosino completed a report on U.S. counterterrorism measures for the Netherlands Ministry of Justice, and a review paper on the relationship of family factors to crime for the U.K. Home Office. He also helped develop the Campbell Collaboration (C2), an international organization that prepares, updates, and disseminates systematic reviews of research on the effects of social and educational interventions. Specifically, he helped develop the C2's first register of experimental studies (known as C2-SPECTR), its first review (on the "Scared Straight" juvenile delinquency prevention program), and one of its first substantive groups (Crime & Justice Group). Petrosino has published approximately 60 articles. His paper in Crime and Delinquency entitled, "Well-Meaning Programs Can Have Harmful Effects! Lessons From Experiments in Scared Straight," won the Pro Humanitate Literary Award from the North American Child Welfare Resource Center. Petrosino has co-edited four special journal volumes, and one of these, New Directions in Evaluation (with Patricia Rogers, Tim Hacsi, and WestEd's Tracy Huebner), was nominated by the Australasian Evaluation Society in 2001 as the best contribution to the evaluation literature. He serves on the Editorial Boards for Evidence & Policy and the Journal of Experimental Criminology. Petrosino received a BA in justice and law from Rowan University of New Jersey (formerly Glassboro State College), an MA in criminal justice from Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, and a PhD in criminal justice from Rutgers University. He was awarded a Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Children’s Initiative in 1997 in "the evaluation of programs for children," and served as Research Fellow for the Center for Evaluation at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Tel: 781.481.1117 781.481.1120 Email: apetros@wested.org Mailing Address: Learning Innovations at WestEd 200 Unicorn Park Drive, 4th floor Woburn, Massachusetts 01801-3324 Resource Involvement: Measuring How Benchmark Assessments Affect Student Achievement Piloting a Searchable Database of Dropout Prevention Programs in Nine Low-Income Urban School Districts in the Northeast and Islands Region