**[PANELIST BIOS]{.underline}**

**Delbert S. Elliott**

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="1.2777777777777777in"
height="1.8173611111111112in"} Del Elliott is the director of The Center
for the Study and Prevention of Violence in the Institute of Behavioral
Science at the University of Colorado and a Professor Emeritus and
Research Professor in the Department of Sociology. He is director of the
National Youth Survey, the longest study of criminal behavior and drug
use in a national panel of adolescents and young adults in the United
States. Del's published a number of books on youth and delinquency
including most recently [Violence in American Schools
(1998)]{.underline} and [Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods]{.underline}
(2006) and serves as editor of Blueprints for Violence Prevention, a
series of monographs describing model violence prevention programs. He
has served as Chair of the Criminal and Violent Behavior Review
Committee (NIMH) and is a past President and Fellow of the American
Society of Criminology and former member of the Advisory Board for the
Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control.
Del has received several awards for his work: the Edwin H. Sutherland
Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Criminology from the
American Society of Criminology (1995), an Outstanding Achievement Award
from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1998),
the Paul Tappan Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of
Criminology by the Western Society of Criminology (2000), the Science to
Practice Award from the Society for Prevention Research, the Public
Health Service Medallion for Distinguished Service awarded by Dr. David
Satcher, U.S. Surgeon General (2001), and the August Vollmer Award from
the American Society of Criminology (2003). In 2005, Del was named a
Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology.

**Stephanie R. Hawkins**

![](media/image2.png){width="1.3604166666666666in"
height="1.9041666666666666in"} Stephanie R. Hawkins is a research
clinical psychologist in the Crime, Violence and Justice Program at RTI
International. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Howard
University in Washington, D.C. and completed a post doctoral research
and clinical fellowship in violence prevention at Stanford University.
Dr. Hawkins' primary research areas include female juvenile delinquency,
adolescent risk taking behaviors, sexual and community violence
prevention programming and program evaluation. Her clinical work has
focused on African American youth and families residing in resource-poor
urban communities. Dr. Hawkins has published on the topics of girls'
delinquency, community violence, school violence, sexual violence, and
adolescent substance use. She has a particular interest in the context
of adolescent development, risk taking behaviors, and culturally
appropriate interventions. Dr. Hawkins is the current project director
for the OJJDP funded Girls Study Group project.

**Margaret Zahn**

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="1.1034722222222222in"
height="1.5506944444444444in"} Dr. Margaret Zahn, newly named Acting
Deputy Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation at the National
Institute of Justice, most recently served as Professor of Sociology and
principal investigator for the Study of Social Causes of Female
Delinquency at North Carolina State University (NCSU). There she also
served as Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Before
her tenure at NCSU, Dr. Zahn chaired the Sociology Departments at
University of North Carolina - Charlotte and at Northern Arizona
University. Early in her career, she served as a professor at Temple
University. Dr. Zahn was at NIJ from 2000-2001 when she directed the
Violence and Victimization division while on leave from NCSU.\
\
For the past three years, Dr. Zahn was the principal investigator for
the Girls Study Group. As part of that project, she wrote papers on
delinquent girls and will soon be publishing a book on the topic. She
has published four books and numerous papers and articles on the broader
topic of violence and homicide, as well as given dozens of presentations
at conferences and meetings. Dr. Zahn has earned a reputation for
outstanding scholarship and was selected in 1998 as a Fellow of the
American Society of Criminology, the highest distinguished award
bestowed by that organization. Dr. Zahn also served as the President of
the American Society of Criminology from 1997-98.

**Elayne Bennett**

![](media/image4.jpeg){width="1.2451388888888888in"
height="1.6277777777777778in"} Elayne Bennett developed the Best Friends
program in 1987, and due to the overwhelming demand for a boys\'
program, she launched Best Men in 2000. She earned her B.A. and M.Ed.
from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Mrs. Bennett serves
as the President and Founder of the Best Friends Foundation. In addition
to teaching the Foundation\'s abstinence curriculum and training
educators throughout the country, Mrs. Bennett serves as a spokeswoman
on issues of adolescent behavior and development.

Elayne Bennett has appeared on several national television shows, in
which the Best Friends and Best Men programs were showcased as solutions
to teen pregnancy, including ABC *Nightline*, CBS *The Early Show*, PBS
*To the Contrary*, Fox News *The O\'Reilly Factor*, ABC *World News
Tonight*, and NBC *The Today Show*. Her speeches and collected writings
have contributed to the books *Giving Back* by Merrill J. Oster and Mike
Hamel, *Restoring the Teenage Soul* by Margaret Meeker, M.D., *Building
a Healthy Society* by Editor Don Eberly, and *Great American
Conservative Women*, by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She has
given testimony on preventing teen pregnancy before the Committee on
Government Reform and Oversight in the House of Representatives, the
Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Ways and
Means, and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government
Reform and Oversight, Subcommittee on Human Resources and
Intergovernmental Relations. Her Best Friends program research data was
accepted for publication by the *Journal for Adolescent and Family
Health* in April 2005.

Mrs. Bennett was honored with the prestigious Jefferson Award for
National Public Service, the John Carroll Society Award, the William E.
Simon Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the St.
Elizabeth Ann Seton Award. She is a member of the Ethics, Religion, and
Public Policy task force of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy. She is the wife of William J. Bennett and the mother of two
sons.

**Pauline Hamlette**

Pauline Hamlette is currently employed by the Best Friends Foundation as
National and Metropolitan Program Director, located at 5445 Wisconsin
Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Mrs. Hamlette is responsible for the
operational oversight of both National and Metropolitan programs.

Mrs. Hamlette has served in many other capacities. She served as an
educator in the District of Columbia Public School System for 36 years,
seventeen of those years as principal of the Amidon Elementary School
where Best Friends implemented it first program in the district. She has
also served as an Assistant Principal, Guidance Counselor, and Business
Education Teacher.

Mrs. Hamlette received her bachelor of science degree in Business
Education from Alabama A & M University, Normal, Alabama, and Master's
of Science degree in Guidance and Counseling, supporting field
Psychology from George Washington University, Washington, DC. She holds
certificates from NSRC Elementary Science Institute, Harvard University
Principal's Center, American University National Alliance of Business
Career, Guidance Institute and the Leadership Institute, George
Washington University.

**The Honorable Anita Josey-Herring**

Anita Josey-Herring is an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the
District of Columbia.  She was appointed to the bench in November 1997
by the President of the United States. Judge Josey-Herring is currently
the Presiding Judge of Family Court of the D.C. Superior Court.

Judge Josey-Herring received a Juris Doctorate in 1987 from Georgetown
University Law Center in Washington, D.C. After law school she obtained
a judicial clerkship position with the Honorable Herbert B. Dixon, Jr.
in the D.C. Superior Court.  In 1988, Judge Josey-Herring joined the
D.C. Public Defender Service as a staff attorney where she handled a
heavy caseload and litigated juvenile, misdemeanor and felony cases in
the Superior Court and supervised less senior staff attorneys.  She also
served in the Public Defender Service's appellate division arguing cases
before the D.C. Court of Appeals. In 1994, the Board of Trustees of the
Public Defender Service appointed Judge Josey-Herring to the position of
Deputy Director of the agency.

Following her appointment to the D.C. Superior Court in 1997, Judge
Josey-Herring has served in the Criminal and Family Divisions of the
court and handled hundreds of trials, motions and other case related
matters. She served as the Deputy Presiding Judge of the Family
Division, now the Family Court, from September 2000 to December 2005 and
has served as Presiding Judge of the Family Court since January 2006.