Marisa Silvestri is an Associate Professor in Criminology at Kingston University. Her main research interests lie at the intersections of policing, gender and criminal justice. More specifically her work centres on exploring the position and role of women in police leadership and the gendered nature of the criminal justice system in relation to its impact on women offenders and victims. As a strong advocate of participatory action research with an emphasis on practitioner involvement, her work not only advances theoretical understandings of these issues but aims to inform policy and practice. She has published extensively in the field, including Women in Charge: policing, gender and leadership (Willan) and 'Gender and Crime' in the Oxford Handbook of Criminology (co-authored with Frances Heidensohn (Oxford). She is also an editorial board member for Policing & Society and is currently working on exploring the gendered impacts of the current police reform agenda on the selection of its chief officers, together with an analysis of the gendered nature of language within policing.