IPRU Director
C. Gabrielle Salfati, M.Sc., Ph.D., F.IA-IP, CAPP
Professor, Department of Psychology
Director of Investigative Psychology Research Unit (IPRU)
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Gabrielle Salfati's 25+ year career to date has been focused on serving the law enforcement and mental health practitioner community.
She has developed and spearheaded initiatives to prioritize best practice in translation of scientific evidence to be applicable in practice through the development of practitioner-focused training, and trains law enforcement officers, crime analysts, forensic psychologists and other criminal justice and mental health professionals.
She is part of the first group of people who emerged within the new field of Investigative Psychology, and was instrumental in its development as an international research field on the empirical analysis of violent criminal behavior. Her main areas of expertise relates to how psychology is applied to police investigations, in particular with reference to behavioral crime scene analysis, offender profiling, and linking serial crime. All of her work has focused on developing evidence-based practice tools for law enforcement and the crime analysis field, specifically as it pertains to behavioral analysis, has been done in collaboration with law enforcement agencies internationally.
Her work in the field of Positive Psychology focuses on the development of resilience training and burnout, compassion fatigue, PTSD and suicide prevention for law enforcement, first responders, mental health professionals, academics, teachers, students, and many other groups. She also leads major research programs on the evaluation of resilience training programs to support wellness and prevent burnout in law enforcement, first-responders and mental health professionals.
She has worked closely with the FBI, NYPD, South Africa Police and the UK police, and numerous other criminal justice agencies, and has completed two separate Visiting Fellowships in 2010 to Bramshill Police College in the UK and in 2016 to the UK College of Policing where she was involved in leadership training and research on decision making and behavioral analysis. She is the recipient of numerous research awards, including Outstanding Contribution to the Field awarded by the International Association of Investigative Psychology, as well as teaching and mentoring awards, and training delivery awards relating to innovation in developing best-practice online teaching techniques.
She is the recipient of numerous research awards, including Outstanding Contribution to the Field awarded by the International Association of Investigative Psychology, as well as teaching and research mentoring awards, and training delivery awards relating to innovation in developing best-practice online teaching techniques for criminal justice practitioners.
You can find the IPRU Research Lab on ResearchGate and on LinkedIn
IPRU Associates
Marina Sorochinski, PhD
Dr. Marina Sorochinski is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Mercy College, NY where she teaches courses in Behavioral Analysis of Violent Crime, Criminology, Forensic Psychology, and Research Methods. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with a Master’s in Forensic Psychology and a PhD in Psychology & Law from CUNY, and an active member of the IPRU since 2006. Dr. Sorochinski’s research specifically focuses on behavioral consistency/inconsistency and identification of behavioral trajectories and victimization patterns for the purpose of linkage and evidence-based profiling in serial violent and sexual crimes. She has been the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, including a research fellowship from the National Institute of Justice and publishes and presents her research widely.
Kimberley Schanz. PhD
Dr. Kimberley Schanz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Stockton University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in forensic psychology, criminal justice, and statistics. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in Psychology and Law from the CUNY Graduate Center/John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research to date has focused on behavioral crime scene analysis in violent crime and the CSI Effect. Her current research focuses on behavioral patterns in sexual offending, the influence of time in behavioral consistency in serial sexual assaults, the salience of behavioral patterns in risk assessment, and theoretical/methodological issues in behavioral crime scene analysis.
Carrie Trojan, PhD
Dr. Carrie Trojan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Kentucky University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in criminal justice, law enforcement, criminal law, criminological theory and homicide. She earned her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice with a specialization in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research to date has focused on the prior criminal offending of single-victim and serial homicide offenders and the link between prior offending to homicide crime scene behaviors. Her current research focuses on variations in wounding and crime scene behaviors in homicide according to the victim-offender relationship, likelihood of homicide victimization across gender, racial, and age groups, the influence of popular crime dramas on the criminal justice system (the CSI Effect) and definitional, measurement, and methodological issues in offender profiling research. She has collaborated on research projects with both national and municipal law enforcement agencies and is a member of several national organizations.
IPRU Research Assistants
The IPRU has a team of dedicated RA's who aid in data collection and analysis for ongoing research projects. If you are interested in joining the IPRU, please see Info for Students.
