Anthony Petrosino serves as Director of the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center and Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.

Petrosino has more than 35 years of experience conducting research in areas such as violence prevention, school safety, juvenile justice, and public health with an emphasis in program evaluation and research synthesis. He has co-directed several federally funded research studies, including randomized controlled trials, for the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Prior to joining WestEd, Petrosino helped develop the Campbell Collaboration, an organization that conducts reviews of research on the effects of social interventions. For example, he led the organization’s pilot review (on the “Scared Straight” delinquency prevention program), and his paper based on that analysis won the Pro Humanitate Literary Award from the North American Child Welfare Resource Center in 2003. Petrosino was the Founding Coordinator for C2’s Crime & Justice Group, receiving a Distinguished Service Award for his service.

He has published over 200 juried articles, book chapters, and other publications. In 2018, Governor Brian Sandoval named him as non-voting expert to serve on the Nevada Governor’s Task Force on School Safety. Petrosino has also received WestEd’s Paul D. Hood Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field, the Campbell Collaboration’s Robert Boruch Award for Contributions to Public Policy, and was also named Honorary Fellow by the Academy of Experimental Criminology.