Jocelyn Fontaine is a senior research fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute and is an adjunct assistant professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. She is committed to using rigorous social science methods to change policy and practice and contribute to the public discourse on crime and the criminal justice system. Her research portfolio mostly focuses on evaluating community-based crime reduction and reentry initiatives. Fontaine directs projects using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to explore the impact of community-based initiatives on outcomes for the individual, family and social networks, and the community. She has extensive experience developing survey instruments, facilitating focus groups, managing fieldwork in diverse settings, conducting stakeholder interviews, interfacing with public officials and program administrators, and translating evidence-based and promising practices into program implementation.

Before joining Urban, Fontaine worked on corrections issues under the Pew Charitable Trusts's Public Safety Performance Project after working as a research assistant on violence and victimization issues in the Office of Research and Evaluation at the National Institute of Justice (US Department of Justice) for several years. Fontaine received her PhD in justice and public policy from the School of Public Affairs at the American University.