PHILADELPHIA –-Laurie O. Robinson, director of the University of Pennsylvania Criminology Department’s Master of Science Program, has been nominated to be assistant attorney general of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs. The Senate confirmation hearing is expected in June.

Robinson was named acting assistant attorney general/principal deputy attorney general on January 28. The appointment marked her return to OJP where she served as assistant attorney general from 1993 to 2000. During her previous tenure, in the Clinton administration, she oversaw the largest increase in federal spending on criminal-justice research in the nation's history.

In 2001, Robinson was named distinguished senior scholar in Penn’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology and executive director of its Forum on Crime & Justice. In 2004 Robinson launched the Criminology Master of Science Program at Penn.

Prior to joining the Department of Justice in 1993, Robinson was the director of the American Bar Association's Section of Criminal Justice for 14 years, where she founded the ABA's Juvenile Justice Center and had responsibility for policy development, work with Congress and development of special projects in such areas as crime victims, prisons and police procedures.