Education
Ph.D.- Criminology, University of Maryland at College Park
MA – Criminology, University of Maryland at College Park
BA – Law and Society, Hood College
Denise Herz, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice & Criminalistics at Cal State Los Angeles. Her primary areas of research include building integrated systems to improve outcomes for dual system youth, building research-to-practice feedback loops for prevention and intervention programming, and reframing traditional risk-based approaches using leading practices from Positive Youth Development. Dr. Herz has collaborated for many years with courts, probation, and child services in Los Angeles County to research dual system youth and improve practices to improve their outcomes. Additionally, she served as Research Director for the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) Research and Evaluation Team from 2011 to 2024. At the national level, she has served as a consultant to the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy; served as Co-PI for the OJJDP Dual System Youth Design Study from 2015 through 2018; and currently serves as Co-PI for a NIJ study titled, An Assessment of Dual System Data and Practices Capacity across Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems. In 2025, she received the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy Shay Bilchik Innovation in Youth Justice Award. Dr. Herz received her MA and Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Contact Information:
Office: Room 258, Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center
Email: Denise C. Herz,Ph.D.
Phone: (323) 343-4624
Research Interests:
Dual system involvement/crossover youth, building integrated systems to address dual system involvement, and data informed program development and evaluation of prevention and intervention programming.