Dr. Katie Remington Cunningham (she/her) is a community-based researcher whose work has spanned the areas of the criminal legal system, youth development, and education. As the Research Director for the Minnesota Justice Research Center, Katie leads the organization’s efforts to engage in participatory and collaborative community-led research, projects and evaluations with partner organizations, and policy-focused research.
As a researcher, Katie asserts an energetic investment in community, a focus on rigorous scholarship, and an unyielding commitment to equity, inclusion, and justice with a particular focus on creating spaces for young people to thrive. She approaches research in a people-first way and holds herself accountable for its potential impact. Katie brings over a decade of teaching experience to her work; she has taught science to high schoolers in St. Louis, skiing to 3-year-olds in Colorado, and writing and reading to incarcerated adults in the Bay Area. Katie loves to be outdoors with her family swimming, mountain biking, running, and skiing and spending most of her free time chasing after her two young daughters and rescue pup. She holds a Ph.D. in Education with a focus on developmental psychology from Stanford University and a Master’s in Secondary Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.