Gipsy Escobar

Dr. Gipsy Escobar is the consulting Data Expert for the Fair Trials Index. She leads the development of the index’s methodology, provides feedback to the data collection instruments, and collaborates with Fair Trials and the Advisory Council to ensure the index is backed by robust methods. Dr. Escobar has experience working in the private, public, academic, and nonprofit sectors, primarily focusing on public safety and criminal justice policy. As the initial Director of Research and Analytics at Measures for Justice (MFJ)–a US-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering criminal justice stakeholders with data–she worked with national experts to design and validate a system of performance measurement for local criminal justice and to develop a robust methodology to standardize the management of criminal justice data from varied sources across jurisdictions in the United States.

Dr. Escobar is the VP of Product and Design at MFJ. She is responsible for understanding the data needs of criminal justice agencies and the communities they serve in four areas: data quality, operational impact, transparency, and community engagement. Dr. Escobar holds a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice jointly awarded by the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and John Jay College. Her doctoral dissertation was awarded the 2013 Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation Research About Homicide or Lethal Violence by the Homicide Research Working Group.

📨 gipsy.escobar@fairtrials.net