Dr. Joel Capellan is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College. He received a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the CUNY Graduate Center/John Jay College in 2016. His research interests revolve around gun violence, the intersection of race and policing, and policy evaluation. Dr. Capellan has published over three-dozen articles on these subjects. This work has been featured in multiple national media outlets, such as The Guardian, NPR, New York Magazine, Univision, and ABC News. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy appointed Capellan to the New Jersey and Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium.

In addition to research, Dr. Capellan has considerable experience training, managing, and implementing policy projects in Central America. As Co-Principal Investigator in the Academy for Security Analysis (USAID-funded program), Dr. Capellan developed and taught courses in Policing, Data Analysis, Policy Evaluation,  and Spatial Analysis of Crime  to participants from the public safety sector, local government agencies, and civil society organizations from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. During this work, Dr. Capellan collaborated with Poder Judicial (Supreme Court), Secretaria de Seguridad (National Police), Secretaria de Educacion  (Department of Education), Mancomunidad de Atlantida and Jovenes Contra la Violencia (Youths Against Violence) in Honduras to implement and evaluate their USAID-funded projects. Currently, he works as Research Director Inmate Survey and Accusatorial Transition Report. This regional inmate survey aims to bring unprecedented insights into the lives, judicial process, and current conditions of inmates in Central America.