Ruben A. Ortiz serves as the Director of Evaluation & Research at the Center for Policing Equity. He oversees the design and implementation of evaluation plans to assess the implementation and impact of innovations focused on harm reduction and public safety redesign. He is passionate about developing innovative solutions to seemingly impossible problems using his expertise and experience.

Ruben holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK), specializing in Criminology and Statistics. He also holds an MS and BS in Criminal Justice from Bridgewater State University. Before CPE, Ruben worked as a social scientist at the Economic Research Service, where he focused on assessing and explaining inequalities in well-being. He worked as a research consultant for the research computing support unit in the Office of Information Technology at UTK, and taught research methods and workshops on applied research at the university level.

Ruben is a global fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Justice (CSSJ) and a member of Population Association of America (PAA), Southern Demographic Association (SDA), The American Society of Criminology (ASC), and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS). He has worked on projects published in journals such as Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Sociological Inquiry, Socius, International Journal of Community Well-Being, and The American Health Information Management Association.