Nancy Rodriguez has been appointed by President Obama as director of the National Institute of Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice. Created in 1969, the National Institute of Justice funds and supervises criminal justice research that focuses on crime reduction and the promotion of justice on the state and local level.
Professor Rodriguez serves on the faculty in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice of the College of Public Programs at Arizona State University. She joined the faculty at Arizona State in 1998 and was promoted to associate professor in 2004 and to full professor in 2012. Dr. Rodriguez is the co-author of Just Cause or Just Because? Prosecution and Plea-Bargaining Resulting in Prison Sentences on Low-Level Drug Charges in California and Arizona (Rand Corporation, 2005).
Dr. Rodriguez is a graduate of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where she majored in criminal justice. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Washington State University.