IMMEDIATE RELEASE

College Park, MD - July 1, 2010 - Optimal will welcome Calvin Johnson, Ph.D., to speak in its Brown Bag Series Wednesday, August 11, 2010. His presentation "Serving Ex-Offenders and Business Intelligence" will focus on the use of business analytics in the government.

Dr. Johnson is currently the Director of the Office of Research & Evaluation at the District of Columbia’s Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA). Dr. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in criminology under Dr. Sherman at the University of Maryland.  He now heads research for the District of Columbia’s community crime-prevention agency, which is responsible for probation, parole, and pretrial services in the nation’s capital.  His expertise in performance measurement and advanced analytics has allowed him to play a key role in the design of program evaluations and annual reports to Congress and Office of Management and Budget.  Dr. Johnson has also used advanced analytic models to help CSOSA address recidivism.

Dr. Johnson will talk about bringing statistical data analysis to the “next level” to protect public safety.  He will discuss his work managing and mitigating risk in community corrections with the use of “SMART-STAT,” which gathers data from a wide array of sources to predict vulnerabilities and suggest interventions that might help.

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Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC is a non-partisan public policy research firm dedicated to rigorous and evidence-based research. Optimal's clients are local, state, and federal governments; non-governmental organizations; and corporations and foundations. Located in the M Square Research Park, Optimal has grown quickly by building on a reputation of exceptional services and products. Our clients benefit from our innovations, value, and efficiency, which we have been able to establish through a robust technology-based infrastructure, uncompromising and documented quality-control procedures, and effective employee recruitment techniques. Optimal has four research centers: health, education, workforce development, and housing.

For more information, please contact Optimal's Communications Department at 301.306.1170 or info@optimalsolutionsgroup.com.