Biography
Catalina Droppelmann holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Valparaíso (Chile) and an MPhil in Criminological Research from the University of Cambridge (UK).
She is currently affiliated to the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, as a PhD researcher under the supervision of Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe. Her research concentrates on the processes and factors associated with desistance from crime in young offenders. More specifically it explores the transition from crime to conformity among Chilean juvenile offenders to identify the theoretical, policy and practical implications of the findings. For this purpose, she has designed and is now undertaking the first longitudinal study with a panel of young offenders in Chile.
Prior to her PhD, Catalina worked for ten years researching and implementing public policies in the areas of sentencing and corrections. She was the Director of the Criminal Justice Division in Fundación Paz Ciudadana in Chile, a Latin American think tank that promotes public policies in the areas of crime prevention, sentencing and corrections. In addition, she has been a research associate of the Institute of Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; and consultant to international organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC). She has been a lecturer of various courses on criminology in Chilean universities.
Catalina is a founding member of the Ibero-American Association of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and in 2009 she was honored as one of 100 young leaders of Chile for her contribution in this field.
Her research interests are youth justice, desistance from crime, criminal careers, law compliance, sentencing and alternatives to incarceration.
