Katie Hill, an attorney whose legal work has focused on public safety initiatives in local and state government, was named earlier this month as the new executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Hill joins the Crime Lab, a research laboratory focused on designing, testing, and scaling data-driven approaches to improve the public sector response to gun violence and the criminal justice system, from the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services, where she has served as general counsel for the past seven months.
The Crime Lab was founded in 2008 in response to the murder of graduate student Amadou Cisse, as well as several Tribune articles “detailing the number of school-age children shot and killed in Chicago,” according to its website. It is one of five urban laboratories at UCLA, each of which works to address challenges in city life.
In 2022, the Crime Lab launched the Community Safety Leadership Academies, which aim to educate police leaders and intervene in community violence, with $27.5 million in funding from billionaires Ken Griffin and Michael Sachs.
The crime lab was launched with an initial grant of $100,000, and now announces an annual operating budget of $30 million.
Hill replaces Rosanna Ander, the lab's founding executive director. Ander will remain with the lab in a leadership role focused on “ensuring both the crime lab and education lab have the necessary support as we seek national and even international influence to create change at scale,” a university statement said.
“In her new role as Founding Director, Rosanna will set strategic direction alongside our leadership team and lead ambitious fundraising efforts,” the release continues. “She will continue to work with our government and nonprofit partners as we work to make a local and national impact.” Rosanna will remain a vital public representative for the Labs, representing our initiatives at events and on global stages and continuing to be a source for the media.
Hill has worked as a public defender and prosecutor, and has held positions in the federal judiciary, the Illinois Appellate Attorney's Office, Chicago City Hall, and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
During her time in municipal government, she was a senior policy advisor to Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2014 on public safety issues. She participated in a “community-led strategic plan to prevent youth violence” and negotiated a Chicago police consent decree, according to the university. She has also represented the city in a wide range of consumer protection and whistleblower lawsuits, and obtained City Council approval for high-dollar settlements to “mitigate the city’s litigation exposure,” according to her LinkedIn.
During her time in the state attorney general's office, according to her LinkedIn, Hill worked on policy initiatives that included bond reform, expanding diversion programs, and launching a transparency and open data initiative. At the state Department of Health Care and Family Services, the university said in a statement, Hill received federal approval to waive the demonstration to allow Medicaid to bill for violence prevention efforts.
Hill, of UCLA, says he also serves on the board of Growing Home, the Center for Farm and Urban Workforce Development and the Chicago chapter of the Federal Bar Association. She is also the board president of ConTextos, a non-profit organization that works to disrupt social networks of violence using literacy and the arts in Chicago and El Salvador, and has volunteered as a tutor at the UCLA School of Law.
Hill could not be reached for an interview at this time.
