Assistant Attorney General Awards Announced December 13, 2012
By Mary Lou Leary
Attorney General Eric Holder made a special trip to OJP last Thursday to present the first Laurie O Robinson Award, established in the name of our immediate past AAG, to be given to a public servant whose outstanding contributions have advanced the use of scientific research in the course of OJP’s important duties.
Its inaugural recipient is OJP Senior Policy Advisor Phelan Wyrick.
Throughout his career, Dr. Wyrick has demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to the infusion of science into the criminal justice arena. Simply put, without Dr. Wyrick there would be no CrimeSolutions, no Diagnostic Center, and no Evidence Integration Initiative (E2I). Dr. Wyrick was responsible for helpng to define and then implement former AAG Laurie Robinson’s vision for E2I, helping to re-establish OJP as a leader in science and evidence-based criminal justice policymaking. As such, Dr. Wyrick played a critical leadership role for OJP in translating scientific research into policy and practice.
There is no more appropriate recipient for the first Robinson Award than the man personally entrusted by AAG Robinson to make her vision a reality.
Among his numerous achievements related to the development and implementation of E2I, Dr. Wyrick:
- led the successful development and implementation, with others, of CrimeSolutions.gov, OJP’s flagship evidence-based information dissemination tool;
- led the Evidence Standards Team, resulting in a standard definition of “evidence-based” policies that is used consistently across OJP solicitations;
- led the Gangs Evidence Integration Team, resulting in a comprehensive assessment of evidence related to gang membership and violence; and
- serves as liaison to OJP’s Science Advisory Board Sub-Committee on Evidence Translation and Integration.
Other recipients of Assistant Attorney General Awards this year are Shelby Jones Crawford, OVC; Patrick Dunckhorst, OJJDP; Todd Garrison, EEO; Stefanie Harris, BJA; Anna Johnson, OCOM; Michael O’Shea, NIJ; Mahendra Patel, OCIO; Ruby Qazilbash, BJA; Corey Randolph, BJA; Andre Roberts, OCIO; Jamalka Staton, OA and Linda Taylor, OAAM.
We congratulate and thank Dr. Wyrick and all of our colleagues who were honored for their dedication, professionalism, and commitment – to OJP, to the Justice Department, and to the citizens we are so privileged to serve.