Alex Murray grew up around the world as an army child before graduating from Birmingham University in 1996 and beginning a distinguished policing career with West Midlands Police. Early roles in both Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and uniform policing took him across Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton, laying the foundations for a career at the sharp end of public protection.

He went on to serve as a Senior Investigating Officer, gaining deep experience in Counter Terrorism, and in 2008 completed a Master’s degree at Cambridge University. His thesis broke new ground in understanding police legitimacy within Muslim communities.

A specialist firearms, public order, and Counter Terrorism (CT) commander, Alex was later appointed Temporary Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) in the West Midlands, where for three years he led major crime investigations, forensics, criminal justice, and intelligence. He subsequently became Commander for Specialist Crime in the Metropolitan Police, overseeing teams tackling cybercrime, human trafficking, child abuse, and economic crime. From 2021–2022, he led the policing response to serious violence in London during a period of heightened teenage homicide.

Alex has also served as Temporary Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, championing a people‑led, tech‑enabled approach to crime fighting. He now holds the role of Director of Threats at the National Crime Agency and is the UK policing lead for artificial intelligence.

Beyond operational leadership, Alex is the founder of the Society of Evidence‑Based Policing and has contributed to police training programs across India, Cambodia, and Europe. In recognition of his service, he was awarded an Officer of the British Empire in 2017.

Dr. Cynthia Lum is a distinguished University Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University and Director of GMU’s Center for Evidence‑Based Crime Policy. She is a leading authority on evidence‑based policing, an approach that promotes the integration of research, evaluation, and scientific methods into law enforcement policy and practice.

Dr. Lum has conducted extensive research and published widely on patrol operations, police crime prevention strategies, technology, investigations and detective work, and evidence‑based crime policy. She has also developed numerous tools and strategies to help translate research into routine law enforcement operations. She is also a former police officer and detective.

A Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, Dr. Lum serves as an appointed trustee of the Council on Criminal Justice and as a board director for the National Policing Institute. She is the founding Editor‑in‑Chief of Translational Criminology Magazine. Dr. Lum holds a PhD in Criminology from the University of Maryland, an MSc in Criminology from the London School of Economics, and bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Economics from UCLA.

Dr. Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron, is a distinguished scholar and educator in policing studies, with recognized expertise at the intersection of law enforcement and public health. She serves as Head of Program (Policing) in the School of Paramedicine and Public Safety at the University of Tasmania and as Director of the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies. Her scholarly work advances trauma‑informed, evidence‑based policing through the design and leadership of research, education, and reform initiatives addressing the needs of vulnerable populations. Internationally recognized for her contributions to police tertiary education, Professor Bartkowiak‑Théron is a multi‑award‑winning teacher and a widely cited authority in law enforcement and public health scholarship. She demonstrates sustained commitment to professional and academic service as Vice President of the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association and Chair of its international Special Interest Group on Education.

Since 2018, she has served as Chair of the Tasmanian Human Research Ethics Committee, providing expert leadership on complex ethical, methodological, and vulnerability‑related research considerations, and contributes extensively to boards, charitable organizations, and editorial committees of international journals.

Dr. Lawrence W. Sherman is Chair of the Cambridge Centre for Evidence-Based Policing Ltd and Wolfson Professor of Criminology Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. 

From 2022 to 2024 he served as Chief Scientific Officer of the Metropolitan Police Service (London), where he designed the VAWG100 project for stopping the most dangerous suspects predating on women and girls. From 2007 to 2022, he educated hundreds of police leaders on evidence-based policing in the Cambridge University Police Executive Programme.

Since beginning his career as an analyst in the New York City Police Department, he has designed or led experiments in over 50 police agencies on four continents. His experiments began when he became the US Police Foundation’s Director of Research, where he met the founders of the UK’s Police Foundation. His discoveries included key facts for police strategies for preventing domestic violence, cooling geographic hot spots, convicting high harm repeat offenders, and helping victims with restorative justice.

A former President of the American Society of Criminology, he holds honorary degrees or medals from five universities. In 2010 he was elected Honorary President of the Society of Evidence-Based Policing at its founding at Cambridge.

As the editor of the Cambridge Collection on Evidence-Based Policing, he has attracted over half a million readers of research for better policing.