Jennifer Woolard, PhD

Professor, Department of Psychology | Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs

Jennifer Woolard a Professor of Psychology and adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Before joining Georgetown, she worked with various organizations, including the National Victims Resource Center, the Virginia Commission on Family Violence Prevention, and the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. In 2002, she joined the psychology faculty at Georgetown University. Her research and action laboratory, the Georgetown Community Research Group, studies individual and family experiences with systems of care and control in order to create fair, effective, and just legal processes. Projects examine how youth and parents understand the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and the right to a trial. Her lab is the evaluation partner for the Youth In Custody Practice Model initiative, which helps juvenile correctional institutions implement evidence-informed and developmentally appropriate practices.

Dr. Woolard is one of two Georgetown representatives on the Co-Creation team of The Well Being Project, and one of the conveners of the Well being in Higher Education Network (WHEN), a coalition of richly diverse, leading higher education institutions and organizations that are committed to catalyzing a culture of inner well-being within the social change education field. Here is a link to the most recent WHEN convening in Caux, Switzerland. The Well Being research initiatives are featured here.