Vera Institute of Justice

Selma Djokovic works as associate director of research with Vera’s Restoring Promise initiative, leading research that helps create and maintain prison housing units that are rooted in human dignity. She has expanded the way participatory methods are used in their research, has developed pathways for research and data to inform implementation and decision-making for the initiative, and has been instrumental in the team’s first randomized control trial assessing the impact of changing prison culture on young adult behavior.

Before joining Vera in 2017, Selma worked for six years with the Public Science Project, a participatory action research institute based in the City University of New York Graduate Center. There, she worked on several participatory action research projects based in New York City related to young adults’ experiences with, and attitudes about, police and school safety officers.