Leah Jacobs

Leah Jacobs is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in the intersection of social welfare, criminal legal systems, and community mental health. Her scholarship challenges traditional frameworks that isolate individual pathology from structural forces, emphasizing instead their interaction in shaping outcomes for marginalized populations.

• BS in Psychology, Northeastern University
• Dual MA in Policy and Planning and Child Development, Tufts University
• MSW and PhD in Social Welfare, University of California-Berkeley

Her research focuses on:

• Social welfare policy intervention
• Public mental health and substance use policy
• Anti-carceral and abolitionist social work approaches
• Geospatial and causal inference methods

Recent funded projects include:

• Can Law Enforcement Training Address Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality? (Principal Investigator)
• Community-Centered Approaches for Violence Prevention (Co-Investigator)

Dr. Jacobs’ empirical work examines how neighborhood contexts, homelessness, community mental health services, and criminal risk factors interact. Her publications highlight interventions to reduce police-youth conflict and build community conflict resolution systems.