Elisa Nicoletti is a Program Manager within NCJA’s Center for Justice Planning. In this role, she provides training and technical assistance, primarily to Site Administering Agencies (SAAs) responsible for administering the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) and the Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program (Byrne SCIP) funding. Elisa supports the SAAs in their strategic planning efforts with a particular focus on utilizing available research, data, and evidence-informed programming.

Prior to joining NCJA, Elisa worked for over a decade in various capacities within the New York City criminal justice space. Elisa began her career working with adolescents as a court advocate at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), New York City’s oldest alternative to incarceration organization. She then led the data collection and analysis team at Ezperanza, a family court-focused alternative to incarceration organization, before serving as a research associate with MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. At MDRC, Elisa supported the implementation and evaluation of several large scale, multi-year initiatives designed to assess the effectiveness of various criminal justice programs. She has worked in program areas including mental health, probation, youth, and jails. Elisa played a critical role in the implementation of the first Social Impact Bond in the United States; a project that utilized a novel financing model to fund an intervention designed to reduce recidivism among adolescents held at Rikers Island Jail.

Elisa received a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Spanish from James Madison University, and a master's degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.