~ RGVRC Affiliate Scholar ~

Spencer Cantrell, JD, is the co-lead of the National Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) Resource Center at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. In this role, Cantrell trains and provides technical assistance to ERPO implementers nationwide and serves as a national expert and resource on extreme risk protection orders to law enforcement, attorneys, advocates, judges, healthcare providers, news media, and others.

Prior to her role at Johns Hopkins, Cantrell worked for over a decade in victim services and most recently served as the legal & advocacy director at the Greater Washington Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (JCADA), where she managed a team of attorneys and advocates to represent and assist survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. While at JCADA, Cantrell also worked on policy at the state and local levels as it affected victim-survivors. Cantrell has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in women’s studies & international studies and her juris doctor from George Mason University’s School of Law.

~ RGVRC Affiliate Scholar ~

Lisa Geller, MPH, is the senior advisor for implementation at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and the co-lead of the Johns Hopkins National ERPO Resource Center (ERC). Geller’s work focuses on research, advocacy, and implementation of evidence-based gun violence prevention policies, including extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) and domestic violence protective orders. As the co-lead of the ERC, Geller provides training and technical assistance to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, clinicians, community organizations, and others involved in the ERPO process. Geller is also a mayoral appointee on the District of Columbia’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. Geller graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in political science. She earned a master of public health (MPH) in health policy and injury and violence prevention from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Jaclyn Schildkraut, PhD, is the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. Prior to this appointment, she served as an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. A national expert on school and mass shootings, Schildkraut’s work focuses on the effectiveness of policies aimed at prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery. Her most recent research, conducted as part of the largest study in the nation to date, examined the effects of school lockdown drills on participants and their skill mastery. In addition to being published in a book and multiple journal articles, the findings of this research are being used by school districts to help improve their emergency response plans. She also has conducted and published research examining the impacts of mass shootings on survivors, which led to her providing an expert report for Canada’s Mass Casualty Commission charged with investigating the April 2020 mass casualty event in Nova Scotia. Other recent projects have considered perceptions of armed teachers and policy responses to mass shootings.

Schildkraut is the co-author of Mass Shootings: Media, Myths and Realities (2016); Columbine, 20 Years Later and Beyond: Lessons from Tragedy (2019); and Lockdown Drills: Connecting Research and Best Practices for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents (2022). She served as the editor on two additional volumes—Mass Shootings in America: Understanding the Debate, Causes, and Responses (2018) and Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law (3rd edition; 2022), and has two additional books under contract. Her research related to mass and school shootings also has been published more than 40 scholarly articles that appear in journals such as the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Homicide Studies, Journal of School Violence, Victims & Offenders, School Psychology Review, Educational Policy, Security Journal, and Crime Prevention and Community Safety. Schildkraut’s research and expertise are regularly sought after by local, national, and international news outlets, including CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Associated Press, Reuters, BBC News, and The Telegraph (UK).