Mara Schiff, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Mara Schiff  has been a restorative justice scholar, practitioner, speaker and advocate for nearly 30 years. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University. She previously served as a Board Member (2013-2022) and Vice-President of the Board (2017-2022) for the National Association for Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ), and U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Belgium (2023-2024). In 2018, she was publicly elected and served a 4-year term on the School Board of the School District of Indian River County (Florida) (2018-2022) where she also served as Vice Chairwoman (2019-2020).

Dr. Schiff’s academic work examines restorative philosophy and practice in criminal-legal, juvenile, and educational arenas, and whether restorative approaches can address institutionalized forms of exclusion, marginalization and injustice. Her work has explored the limitations of restorative language and narrative, as well as contextualizing restorative justice alongside other interdisciplinary approaches to address systemic structural violence. Current research examines the impact of political context on the restorative justice movement, and the development of restorative cities around the world.

She has authored multiple books, book chapters and articles in academic journals such as The International Journal of Restorative Justice, Contemporary Justice Review, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Criminal Justice Review. Her article, “Can Restorative Justice Disrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline?” (2018) remains the fourth most widely read article in Contemporary Justice Review. She has received evaluation and training grants from the National Institute of Justice, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other national and local organizations.

Dr. Schiff speaks and trains nationally and internationally on restorative and racial (in)justice in criminal-legal, education, and community settings. She has worked with school districts implementing restorative strategies to shift disciplinary policy, climate and culture, and has trained teachers, administrators, staff, school resource officers and others in restorative educational strategies. She has served as a consultant for the National Center of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) the School-Justice Partnership Project, the Federal Department of Education’s Rethinking Discipline Initiative, and been an invited speaker at national and international events such as Closing the School Discipline Gap in Washington DC, the New York State Permanent Commission on Justice for Children’s School-Justice Partnership Summit in New York City, the National Leadership Summit on School Justice Partnership in Washington, DC. She has keynoted various international academic conferences in Amsterdam, South Africa and Greece, as well as annual conferences of the European Forum for Restorative Justice in both 2021 and 2022.

Dr. Schiff recently served as an US Global Fulbright Scholar to Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (2023-24), International Global Criminology Professor, invited Fellow to the “American Israeli Cross-Cultural Scholarly Collaboration” (sponsored by the Jewish National Foundation, 2022-23), and was an invited inaugural Fellow at Maynooth University’s (Ireland) Summer Institute in Restorative Justice and Design Innovation on “Public Education: Communicating Restorative Justice to the Public.” Dr. Schiff was awarded the Florida Atlantic University Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2023), the President’s Community Engaged Teaching Award (2019), and the President’s Leadership Award, (2010-2011). Dr. Schiff regularly teaches courses on School Crime and Safety, and Restorative Justice at Florida Atlantic.