Cassandra Ramdath
Research Scholar in Law and Research Director| Cassandra.Ramdath@yale.edu
Cassandra Ramdath is a Research Scholar in Law and Research Director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, leading research that advances transparency and trust across systems. As a health and justice scholar, she examines interpersonal and institutional harm, systems reform, and transformative justice through participatory methods.
With over 15 years of research experience in academic, government, and non-profit sectors, Dr. Ramdath has led dozens of community-engaged, mixed-methods studies, from randomized controlled trials to oral histories. As the inaugural Director of Research at Georgetown Law’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety, she led a portfolio evaluating law enforcement training, Hospital based Violence Intervention Programs, and survivor-led storytelling. Prior, she served as senior researcher on the Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative and on multiple studies at the Center for Justice Innovation examining gun violence, procedural justice, and diversion programs. Her work appears in esteemed peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and national media outlets including Newsweek and The Hill.
Dr. Ramdath earned her PhD in Criminal Justice from John Jay College (CUNY), with a dissertation on traumatic brain injury among incarcerated youth in Rikers Island. She holds an MA in Criminology from Bond University, Australia and a BA in Psychology and Criminology from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Born and raised in Toronto in an Indo-Caribbean family from Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Ramdath brings a transnational, community-rooted lens to her scholarship.