The BWC TTA program is supported by TTA Leads and Subject Matter Experts who are key members and essential to the success of the BWC TTA Program. They contribute to a number of critical training and technical assistance activities—from webinar development, to product development, to on-site technical assistance, to participation in national meetings and training events, to regular conference calls with BWC PIP sites.
Subject Matter Experts contribute to the resource development, national meetings, and on-site technical assistance with any agency across the country, while TTA Leads are matched with BWC PIP sites and asked to provide specific training and technical assistance activities depending on the skills and expertise required.
Learn more about the Subject Matter Experts and TTA Leads and their time spent in the BWC TTA program through their bios and audio recordings. To access the audio recordings, click the podcast icon next to each of their names.
Arif Alikhan is the former Director for Constitutional Policing and Policy at the Los Angeles Police Department. He has served in several senior homeland security, counterterrorism, and law enforcement positions, including as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in LA and as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. | Arif Alikhan, Director (ret.)
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Karen Cook
| Karen Cook Twele is an Assistant District Attorney General in Memphis, Tennessee with over 30 years of experience as a prosecutor. During this time, she has been assigned to the Violent Crime Prosecution Unit where she focused on prosecuting violent offenses (rape, robbery, and murder) in Shelby County, Tennessee. She became the Division Leader of the Domestic Violence Unit where she advised the Memphis Police Department Domestic Violence Unit and led a team of attorneys who prosecuted all violent crimes involving intimate partners. She is currently assigned as division leader in the Special Prosecution Unit which deals exclusively with violent offenders who have significant criminal histories. In addition to trials and her court room responsibilities, she is assigned as an on-call senior prosecutor for a Memphis Police Department Precinct, as well as a liaison with the Memphis Police Department on body worn camera and in car video. |
Chief Cuevas has served as a BWC TTA Lead and subject matter expert since 2016. He has nearly 32 years of experience in the law enforcement field. He spent his policing career working with the Camden City & Camden County Police Departments. He has served & commanded various functions at both departments including: strategic response, criminal intelligence, criminal investigations, planning, financial management, training, patrol operations, emergency management, community policing, crime-scene investigations, evidence, technical support and administration. In 2013, he became Deputy Chief of the Camden County Metro Police Department where he was integral in standing up a new police department & its many functions. In 2014 he was promoted to Assistant Chief where he ran the day-to-day operations of the Agency. During his tenure as an executive, he led many projects which are regarded as public safety efficiency & technology models. This includes standing up the Agency's body camera project. In 2017 Chief Cuevas was hired as the Director of the Camden County Regional Emergency Training Center which trains police, firefighter & emergency medical technician recruits. Chief Cuevas is an Adjunct professor at Camden County College & Fairleigh Dickinson University. As a TTA lead, Chief Cuevas has worked with many diverse law enforcement agencies to establish policy & comprehensive body camera projects.
| Chief Orlando Cuevas (ret.)
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Brittany C. Cunningham, PhD
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Dr. Brittany Cunningham is a Research Scientist with CNA's Institute of Public Research. Dr. Cunningham is an expert in scientific research and analysis and has more than a decade of experience designing, implementing, and managing rigorous research studies and evaluations at the local-, state- and national-level. Dr. Cunningham has led and supported grants and projects from several federal agencies including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, and the National Science Foundation. Currently, Dr. Cunningham serves as the Project Director for the Using Analytics to Improve Officer Safety study, funded by BJA, which investigates police incident data to support the development of a risk assessment model to support officers assess risk and take appropriate safety protocols in real time when responding to incidents. She serves as the Project Manager for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)-funded randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the impact of BWCs in the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, which is one of the first RCTs of BWCs in a correctional setting. Additionally, Dr. Cunningham is experienced using evidence-based approaches, and quantitative and qualitative analysis to support law enforcement agency operations and organizational reform. Currently, she supports the racial bias audit of traffic stops for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the assessment of Prince George County's (MD) Police Department's policies and procedures it related to police-community relations. | |
Scott Decker is a Senior Scientist at CNA working with the Justice Group. He currently works with the Strategies for Policing Innovation, Body Worn Cameras, Project Safe Neighborhood, and the Project on American Justice. He is a specialist in collaborations between practitioners and researchers. He formerly served as Foundation Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. He is a Fellow in the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. He is the author of 18 books and over 140 scientific articles.
| Scott Decker, PhD
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Janne Gaub, PhD
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Janne E. Gaub is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has served as a BWC TTA subject-matter expert for almost seven years. She received her Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Arizona State University in 2015 and was the project manager for a multi-site randomized controlled trial testing the impact of police officer body-worn cameras in Tempe, Arizona and Spokane, Washington (funded by Arnold Ventures). She is the author/co-author of the BWC TTA Outcome Directories and multiple technical reports related to the various impacts of BWCs. Dr. Gaub’s primary research interests are police BWCs, specialty units, misconduct, and gender and policing, and her research has been published in academic journals including Criminology, Criminology, Public Policy, Journal of Experimental Criminology, and Police Quarterly.
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Scot Haug is a 32-year-veteran of law enforcement, having worked in all areas of police operations and technology recently retiring as the Chief of Police of the Post Falls, Idaho Police Department. He is a graduate of the 201st FBI National Academy and has served as a Commissioner for Idaho POST, the agency responsible for all Idaho policing standards and training. Most recently he served as President of the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association. Scot is known for being an effective practitioner-technologist and has significant project management experience. He has served as a technology consultant to companies, such as Lockheed Martin, Booz|Allen|Hamilton and the International Chief’s of Police Association. His technology projects have been featured in Computer World magazine, CEO magazine, and the Harvard University Government Innovators Network. He is co-owner of the consulting firm, Public Safety Insight.
| Chief Scot Haug (ret.)
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Charles Katz
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Charles Katz is a Professor and the Watts Endowed Family Chair of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and is Director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. His research involves collaborating with agencies to increase their organizational capacity to identify and respond to crime effecting local communities. He currently serves as a research partner to the Phoenix Police Department to evaluate their BJA sponsored projects related to SMART policing and Crime Gun Intelligence. He served as one of two primary authors of the US Department of Justice Body-Worn Camera Toolkit and currently serves as a senior advisor to the Bureau of Justice Assistance on its Body-Worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance Team.
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Jason Lustig is currently the Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Long Beach Branch Office where he is responsible for the day-to-day operations of one of the County’s busiest courthouses. From 2013 to 2017, Mr. Lustig was the Deputy-in-Charge of the LADA’s Discovery Compliance Unit and was responsible for the management of the LADA’s Brady duties regarding law enforcement officers and expert witnesses. He co-authored a new Brady policy, which replaced all previous policy directives on this highly controversial issue, and regularly presented on Brady and police personnel file issues to law enforcement agencies, including the LASD’s Major Crimes Division and the Los Angeles Police Protective League. From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Lustig had primary responsibility for the implementation of police body cameras throughout LA County. He was a subject matter expert rater for LASD’s body camera RFP as well as the RFP for the County’s digital evidence management system. | Jason Lustig
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Aili Malm, PhD |
Dr. Aili Malm is a Professor in the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management at California State University, Long Beach. She is interested in the assessment and evaluation of policing strategies and intelligence. She has worked as a PI or Co-PI for over $5 million in grants. She has published over 40 research articles and two books including ‘Disrupting Criminal Networks’ with Gisela Bichler, and ‘Cops, Cameras and Crisis’ with Mike White. She has also worked with several police departments across the globe, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British Home Office, Danish National Police, and numerous local departments across the United States.
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Laura McElroy has 30 years’ experience as an award-winning journalist, as the communications director of a large urban police department, and as a communication strategist. She has guided government agencies and large companies during high-profile crises and managed large-scale events. Ms. McElroy led the joint information centers for a Republican National Convention, multiple hurricanes, and Super Bowl XLIII. She has helped leaders effectively manage incidents including officer-involved shootings, a statewide manhunt for a cop killer, political protests, a sex scandal at a public agency, negligent death cases, a murder-suicide at a large hospital, the death of a child in protective service care, and officers involved in criminal activity. She also served as a subject matter expert to MPD through the OJP Diagnostic Center in 2015. Ms. McElroy is a member of the Independent Monitoring Team of the Chicago Police Department. She works with the Monitor’s Community Engagement Team to ensure community members have a voice in reforming their police department. She shares best practices in her field as an instructor with the Police Executive Research Forum’s Senior Management Institute of Police (SMIP). She also serves as a subject matter expert for the DOJ, CNA’s Institute for Public Research, Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), the National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC), and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Through these organizations, she develops strategic communications plans and conducts executive-level training with law enforcement agencies around the country, installing best practices in crisis communication, media relations, social media, and community outreach. During her 11 years as the Tampa Police Department’s Chief Information Officer, Laura helped the agency navigate innumerable crises, all while strengthening its community relationships. By establishing new levels of transparency and accountability, she improved public trust in the department that resulted in extensive positive news coverage and helped mitigate controversial issues. In this role, she developed excellent working relationships with all Tampa media outlets and created new partnerships with activists, community groups, and business leaders. | Laura McElroy
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Chief McLaughlin is an accomplished law enforcement professional with extensive experience directing and managing the daily operations of a full-service police department of nearly 100 personnel serving a population of 25,000 (nighttime)/ 125,000 (daytime). He has over 30 years of progressive, extensive and diverse experiences and has navigated a balanced career with operational and staff assignments. He implemented a focus on community policing initiatives by actively working in conjunction with community leaders and concerned citizens to develop and strengthen relationships. He is dedicated to impeccable professionalism, personal integrity, courage and ethical decision-making.
| Chief Richard McLaughlin (ret.)
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Chief Harold Medlock (ret.)
| Chief Harold Medlock served as Chief of Police of the Fayetteville Police Department (FPD) for nearly four years, retiring in January 2017. During his tenure with FPD, he led the department in securing Body Worn Cameras for the department with grant funding from the BJA Body Worn Camera Grant Program. He served over two decades with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; promoting to Deputy Chief in 2008. He served as National Special Security Event (NSSE) Co-Chair for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Chief Medlock earned an MBA degree from Pfeiffer University and is a graduate of the FBI National Executive Institute, the FBI National Academy, and the Senior Management Institute for Police. Chief Medlock actively served on a number of law enforcement and social issue boards including the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission, the North Carolina Police Executives Association, the North Carolina Criminal Justice Training and Standards Commission, and the North Carolina Commission for Racial and Ethnic Disparity. He presented written and verbal testimony for the President’s Task Force for 21st Century Policing. Chief Medlock currently serves as the Associate Monitor for Accountability and Transparency for the Chicago Police Department Consent Decree. He serves as a Subject Matter Expert and Strategic Site Liaison for several Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) projects including the Strategies for Policing Innovation (SPI), Public Safety Partnership (PSP), Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN), and Body Worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance (BWC TTA) program.
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Retired Public Safety Director Geoff Smith is an expert on law enforcement and fire policies, operations, and oversight. He served as the Public Safety Director of the City of Sturgis from 2013 to 2020 and served in law enforcement for more than 26 years and firefighting for more than 10 years. Director (ret.) Smith has substantial expertise in technology, including deployment of in-car and body worn camera systems, cell phone forensic, as well as active shooter training. Currently, he Director (ret.) Smith holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Management & Organizational Development from Spring Arbor University and is a certified instructor and specialist in various disciplines including computer and cell phone forensics. He has served as President of Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police and of the Western Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. He was a former member of L.E.A.F, a group of chiefs, litigation attorneys and the Michigan Municipal League, that develops “Best Practices” policies for law enforcement agencies across the State. Director (ret.) Smith has presented on numerous public safety topics at annual conferences of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, the Michigan Municipal League, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
| Geoff Smith, Director of Public Safety (ret.)
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Charles Stephenson, Senior Advisor
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Charles Stephenson is an expert in technologies and analytics used by law enforcement. Prior to joining CNA Mr. Stephenson was a public safety technologist with the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Communications Center of Excellence where he assisted the public safety community in addressing their technology needs and challenges. Mr. Stephenson has a Masters of Business Administration in Project Management from Columbia Southern University and Bachelors of Science in Business from the University of Maryland. During his time at the CNA Corporation, he has provided extensive support to criminal justice projects such as Strategies for Policing Innovation (SPI), Body-worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance (BWC TTA), and the National Public Safety Partnership (PSP). His work on SPI, BWC TTA and PSP projects includes providing subject matter expertise, technical and analytical support to the team and grantees. Mr. Stephenson is a retired US Army Signal Corp Officer and has considerable technical expertise in federal government R&D programs, rapid prototyping of new technologies and technology transfer to the private sector. Additionally, he has worked on federal projects involving communications interoperability, detection of contraband cell phones in correctional facilities, development of software defined radios and the evaluation of gunshot detection technologies.
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| Michael D. White, PhD
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Tom Woodmansee
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| Captain Dan Zehnder (ret.)
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