Professor Elizabeth R. Groff (Ph.D., Geography, University of Maryland) joined the faculty in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University in 2007 and will formally retire June 30, 2025. Dr. Groff was an early innovator in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) within law enforcement agencies and has focused her career on developing evidence to improve police practice. Her innovative work in the areas of criminology of place, body-worn cameras, and agent-based simulation modeling has led to important scientific discoveries with real-world policy implications. 

Dr. Groff has been a core member of our faculty for nearly twenty years, providing exceptional educational experiences for our undergraduate and graduate students. At the undergraduate level, she taught popular courses in Street-level Criminology and Mapping Crime and Justice Data and core courses including Criminal Justice Research Methods. At the graduate level, Liz taught Simulation Modeling, Advanced Geospatial Methods, Criminology of Place, and Crime Mapping. Due to her geospatial expertise, Liz held a secondary appointment in the Department of Geography and Uban Studies during her tenure at Temple. Dr. Groff has had a considerable teaching impact, providing quality classroom learning experience to hundreds of students and expert mentorship and guidance to more than twenty doctoral students through her dissertation committee service. In recent years, Liz has been on special leave to work as a Senior Statistician at the National Institute of Justice, where she was able to make important national contributions to the field of criminology/criminal justice.

Over her career, Liz has published four-dozen peer-reviewed journal articles in outlets such as Criminology, Journal of Experimental Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Annual Review of Criminology, among others. Adding to this impressive record of publishing in the top journals in the field, Liz has also published well over a dozen book chapters along with nearly thirty other works and research reports, and has presented many times at professional conferences. Furthermore, Liz has co-authored five books centered on aspects of criminology of place; these works have undoubtedly contributed significantly to the development of this popular subfield. As a collective, Dr. Groff’s work has garnered more than 7,500 citations, earning her a spot among the top 2% of scholars cited in the discipline. Impressively, Dr. Groff has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than a dozen funded projects totaling well over $3M, having received funds from agencies including the National Institute of Justice, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Emblematic of the extensive international impact of her work, Liz has served as an invited keynote speaker at conferences across the United States and around the globe, including in China, Isreal, and the Netherlands. 

Complementing an outstanding career filled with research and teaching impact, Dr. Groff also poured considerable time and energy into her service responsibilities at the university and within the discipline. For instance, Dr. Groff served on all major committees at the department level, and provided department leadership with stints as the Undergraduate Program Chair and the Graduate Program Chair. Liz also played an active role on committees at the university level (Sabbatical Award, Tenure and Promotion, Student Award Selection, Teaching and Learning Center Search) and at the college level (Budget Priorities, Search Committee, Events Planning, Tenure and Promotion, and Academic Technology). Within the discipline, Liz has served on editorial boards for highly respected journals in the field, such as Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency and Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and has served as a manuscript reviewer for dozens of peer reviewed journals and outlets. Altogether, Dr. Groff has undoubtedly had an impressive, meaningful, and well-rounded career.