Meagan Cahill

Meagan Cahill (she/her) is the Research Director at PERF, overseeing a portfolio of rigorous policing-related research. For nearly 20 years, she has been conducting research and evaluation in the areas of policing and improving police-community relations; crime, place, and community crime prevention; at-risk and delinquent youth—with a special focus on youths' social networks; and gang violence. She recently led an impact and process evaluation of NYPD's Neighborhood Policing philosophy and an effort to develop tools that communities can use to improve police-community relations. She developed and implemented a tabletop exercise designed to help cities improve police-community relations and developed a research agenda identifying priority research topics that may improve efforts to reduce officer-involved shootings. Cahill also served as the research director for the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research at the RAND Corporation, overseeing the solicitation process and grants management. Prior to joining PERF, Cahill conducted multi-site evaluations of policing strategies and anti-gang programs and studying youth gang networks and the gang desistance process at two other research organizations.

Cahill received an M.A and Ph.D. in geography (with a focus on the geography of crime) from the University of Arizona and received a National Institute of Justice Dissertation Fellowship in 2003–2004. She received her B.A in geography from the University of Mary Washington (formerly Mary Washington College) in Fredericksburg, Va.