From Federal Policy to the Classroom: A Career Dedicated to Public Safety Education
With more than two decades of public safety leadership experience, Kristen Mahoney joins the University of Virginia's School of Continuing and Professional Studies as the new senior director for criminal justice leadership education programs. Under her auspices, she will oversee curriculum development and strategic direction for the Center for Public Safety and Justice.
Mahoney's career journey spans local, state and federal government; among her many accomplishments, she has held leadership roles at the Baltimore Police Department, the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. Much of her work has focused on violent crime reduction, organizational performance and building sustainable public safety infrastructure that serves communities effectively.
In the following interview, Mahoney discusses her path to education, her vision for criminal justice leadership programs at UVA and what drew her to this role.
Give us a little overview of your background.
From my housing clinic experience in law school to roles in local, state and federal government, I've been focused on how public institutions work in practice and how policy, resources and leadership come together to shape outcomes and better serve people. I'm a practitioner at heart, driven to solve real problems and to see better results in the field, led by the people doing the work.
My time serving as chief of technical services at the Baltimore Police Department and as executive director of the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, during a period of strong emphasis on accountability and results, fundamentally shaped how I think about public safety. Those roles sharpened my focus on capacity, execution and the challenge of sustaining violent crime reduction in complex environments.
At the federal level, I served as the principal deputy director at United States Department of Justice within the Bureau of Justice Assistance. In that role, I helped oversee roughly $2 billion annually in training, technical assistance and site-based grants supporting the full public safety continuum.
Across federal, state and local roles, these experiences reinforced my focus on sustainability, organizational performance and impact, and are probably what drew me to education as a long-term lever for strengthening public institutions and communities.
What do you like to do for fun?
A lot of my free time revolves around my family. My husband and son are avid mountain bikers, and I'm usually running behind them on the trails with our dog, Gavin. Tennis is also a constant in my life: I played in college, still play whenever I can and follow the sport closely. I'll just say that pickleball has not won me over.
One passion of mine is magic. Whenever I travel, I try to seek out magic venues or performances. What I enjoy most is following the magician's story and realizing that your instincts and expectations aren't going to solve the problem. You think you see where it's going, and then you don't. In that way I think magicians make surprisingly good teachers!
What has your career journey been like so far?
Over time, I've been drawn less to managing individual programs and more to building lasting core competencies within institutions. I'm most interested in helping organizations think clearly about their goals, use evidence responsibly and adapt to complexity. Working in state and local government, in particular, grounded my understanding of how decisions play out in real time and reinforced the importance of accountability and implementation.
As my career has progressed, my work has focused on violent crime reduction, organizational performance, stakeholder engagement and long-term sustainability. My time in Baltimore and Maryland was especially formative; it exposed me to both the profound challenges and real opportunities facing communities across the country and taught me to ask why something works, why it doesn't and what could be done differently. I've seen how thoughtful, well-executed public institutions can improve lives in meaningful ways.
Talk about your new role at UVA. How does it contribute to the larger mission at the School of Continuing and Professional Studies?
At its core, my role is about strengthening what already makes the School so special; this institution brings together business, government, health care, public safety and technology in one place. The problems professionals face rarely sit in a single lane, and the School gives the Center for Public Safety and Justice the structure to reflect that reality.
Building on the foundation created by Dr. Bryon Gustafson, I work with faculty and staff to ensure our programs continue to connect academic rigor to real-world practice. That means supporting a modern curriculum that is evidence-based, cross-disciplinary and designed for people who are already working in complex environments. This work also recognizes the role that responsible private-sector partners play in modern public safety, particularly in areas like technology, data, analytics and operational support.
What attracted you to this role? What are you most excited about?
The professionals who come to the Center are carrying real responsibilities that affect communities, organizations and victims: the people most impacted when systems fail. Many are looking for education and a network that can help them keep pace with the complexity of their roles and support what comes next in their careers.
What excites me about the Center is how well positioned it is to meet that need. When students leave, they should feel more confident in their judgment and well equipped to deliver results they can stand behind.
UVA's depth across business, law, public policy, health and applied sciences allows the Center to approach public safety as a systems challenge rather than a single-discipline problem. That academic strength, paired with a Center advisory board of experienced practitioners, helps ensure our education remains rigorous, current and grounded in real-world practice.
If our students are delivering better outcomes for the communities they serve and helping advance the field, that's the standard we're working toward. That combination of academic rigor, practical relevance and institutional support is what makes the Center a compelling place for public safety professionals. It's why this work matters to me.