Claudia Gross Shader, PhD, MPA

• Institute of Criminology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. PhD Criminology, Dissertation title: Can City Government Function as a Super-Controller at Crime Hot Spots to Create Lasting Crime Control Benefits?
• Northern Illinois University, Master of Public Administration, Distinguished Manuscript Award, Academic Achievement Award
• Northern Illinois University, Bachelor of Science, Finance

Selected Publications

• Claudia Gross Shader (for Office of City Auditor) (July 2023). The City Can Do More to Tackle Organized Retail Crime in Seattle. 
• Charlotte Gill, with Madeline McPherson, Xiaotian Zheng, and Claudia Gross Shader (May 2023). Rainier Beach Campus Safety Continuum – Final Report.
• Claudia Gross Shader (for Office of City Auditor) (October 2022). Action is Needed to Explore Ways to Offer an Evidence-Based Treatment for People Who Use Methamphetamine
• Claudia Gross Shader (for Office of City Auditor) (July 2022). The City of Seattle Should Use a Data Dashboard to Track its Progress in Addressing Unsanctioned Encampments.
• Claudia Gross Shader (for Office of City Auditor) (February 2020). Five Steps the City of Seattle Should Take to Reduce Trash Around Unsanctioned Encampments.
• Charlotte Gill and Claudia Gross Shader (2020). Building a “Beautiful Safe Place for Youth:” The story of an effective community-research-practice partnership in Rainier Beach, Seattle. In R.J. Stokes and C. Gill (Eds.), Innovations in community-based crime prevention: Case studies and lessons learned. Springer.
• Cody Telep and Claudia Gross Shader (August 2019). Creating a ‘what works’ translation tool for police: A researcher-city government partnership. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal.
• Melissa Alderson and Claudia Gross Shader (for Office of City Auditor). (May 2019). Review of Hate Crime Prevention, Response and Reporting in Seattle – Phase 2 Report.
• Claudia Gross Shader and Megumi Sumitani (for Office of City Auditor). (February 2019). Review of Navigation Team (homeless outreach) Quarter 2 Report.

Dr. Gross Shader has worked for the City of Seattle since 1993 and has been with the Office of City Auditor since 2002. Throughout her time with the Office of City Auditor, Dr. Gross Shader has led and participated in effective interagency collaborations, developed and presented reports for elected leaders with short turnaround times, and has worked effectively with diverse stakeholders on high-stakes City issues. Her current role as Research and Evaluation Director includes authoring reports for City leaders regarding public safety, unsheltered homelessness, and substance use disorder, managing City Council-funded projects with university research partners to conduct rigorous evaluations of City ordinances and programs, and serving as the City’s research liaison on federally-funded public safety evaluations. This public safety evaluation work has focused on building community capacity to change physical and social conditions at geographic locations where crime is concentrated. Since 2012, she has provided technical assistance for the implementation and evaluation of a community-led, place-based approach to reducing youth victimization and crime in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood which was initially funded by a Bureau of Justice Assistance, Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation grant and has been funded by the City of Seattle and its community partners since 2016. The 2016 evaluation found declines in violent crime and improvements in perceptions of safety in the focus areas. Since 2012, Dr. Gross Shader has been an active member of the Core Team (governing body) for Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth, which is a collaboration among community-based organizations, community members, government agencies, and schools. From 2017 to 2022, Dr. Gross Shader also served as the Co-Principal Investigator on a $3.8 million grant from the National Institute of Justice to reduce school discipline, youth crime, victimization, and youth exposure to the criminal legal system in Rainier Beach through community-led, place-based, non-punitive approaches. The 2023 evaluation found that the program was associated with significantly lower rates of calls for service and offenses in the areas around the treatment schools, relative to the areas around the comparison schools. Offenses involving juvenile suspects and/or victims were also lower, although not statistically significant. Since 2011, Dr. Gross Shader has authored numerous reports on behalf of the Office of City Auditor (see CV for links to reports) in the areas public safety, crime/violence prevention, and unsheltered homelessness. In October 2022 Dr. Gross Shader authored a report regarding methamphetamine use disorder in Seattle that recommended that government, including the City, explore ways to deliver place-based treatment that is based on rigorous research and proven effective for people who use methamphetamine. The Washington State Health Care Authority subsequently funded a pilot program to test the recommended place-based approach in permanent supportive housing in Seattle, which began in July 2023. Dr. Gross Shader has a Master’s degree in Public Administration and earned her Ph.D. in Criminology; her academic research includes crime prevention, evidence-based policing, translational criminology, crime and place, youth violence prevention, school discipline reform, community change initiatives. She is also an Affiliated Scholar with George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.