Joan Ramme Petersilia (January 2, 1951 – September 23, 2019) was an American criminologist and the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, as well as the faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
She joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1992 as a professor of criminology, law and society, and in 2005, she became the founding director of the Center on Evidence-Based Corrections there.
[3][5] Also that year, she received an honorary Doctor of Public Policy from the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School.
[1] She also served as president of the American Society of Criminology and the Association of Criminal Justice Research in California.
She was also a fellow of the American Society of Criminology and the recipient of its Vollmer Award.