Dr. Irvine has more than 25 years of experience in education and social policy. Raised in Santa Cruz County, CA, Dr. Irvine earned her BA from UC Berkeley in 1988, her secondary teaching credential from St. Mary’s College of California in 1989, and her PhD in sociology from Northwestern University in 2002 while simultaneously serving as a National Science Fellow (NSF) in public policy and program evaluation. Dr. Irvine spent eight years running Ceres Policy Research from 2002 through 2010, four years as research director at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), and two years as a Vice President at Impact Justice. She has studied housing, education, health, and criminal justice policy. She has served as the principal investigator of a national study of youth deincarceration; a national study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, gender nonconforming and transgender (LGBQ/GNCT) young people in the youth justice system; a project to improve permanency for LGBT youth and youth of color within the criminal justice and youth justice systems; a survey of every detention hall, ranch, and camp in California to understand statewide pathways into the youth justice system for LGBT young people; a four-county study of the links between school discipline and justice involvement; and two studies to understand the impact of the criminalization of immigration on families and communities.