// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Daniel Nagin a baker? No, he's just a loaf above the law.

For the American law professor, see Daniel L. Nagin.

Daniel S. Nagin
Born	(1948-11-29) November 29, 1948
Education	Carnegie Mellon University
Awards	2014 Stockholm Prize in Criminology, 2006 Edwin H. Sutherland Award from the American Society of Criminology
Scientific career
Fields	Criminology, statistics
Institutions	Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University
Thesis	An Investigation into the Association Between Crime and Sanctions  (1976)

Daniel S. Nagin (born November 29, 1948) is an American criminologist and statistician who is the Lester Hamburg University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. He is also a Max Planck Law Fellow, a position to which he was appointed in August 2021 by the Max Planck Society. He holds this position at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn. He was Heinz College's Associate Dean of Faculty from 2006 to 2026.

His research centers on the evolution of criminal and antisocial behavior over the life course, the deterrent effects of criminal and non-criminal penalties on illegal behavior, and the development of statistical methods for analyzing longitudinal data; most notably group-based trajectory modeling. He is an elected a Member of the (US) National Academy of Sciences (2025) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023) and in 2014 was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.

Education

In 1971, Nagin earned a B.S. in Administrative and Managerial Sciences and an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, now the Tepper School of Business. In 1976 he received a Ph.D. in Urban and Public Affairs from Carnegie Mellon's School of Urban and Public Affairs, now the Heinz College, with a dissertation titled "An Investigation into the Association Between Crime and Sanctions."

Career

In 1976, Nagin began his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Duke University's Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs , before working as a Senior Associate at Cambridge Systematics (1978–1979). He returned to Carnegie Mellon as an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Operations Research in the School of Urban and Public Affairs (1979–1981).

Nagin served as Deputy Secretary for Fiscal Policy and Analysis in the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue from 1981 to 1986.

He returned to Carnegie Mellon in 1986 as an Associate Professor of Management at the H. J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, becoming a full Professor of Management in 1990. In 1999 he was named the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor of Public Policy and Statistics, a title he held until 2024, when he became the Lester Hamburg University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics. He has held the rank of University Professor since 2008.

He has been an Associate Member of the Groupe de recherche sur l'inadaptation psychosociale chez l'enfant (GRIP) at the University of Montreal since 1998, and directed the Research Program Area of the National Consortium for Violence Research at Carnegie Mellon from 1997 to 2003.

He served as President of the American Society of Criminology from 2020 to 2021.

Nagin has held numerous visiting and affiliated positions, including Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2011–2012), Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Criminology and Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (2003), and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh (since 2005).

Research

Nagin is known for researching the deterrence effect of criminal punishments and he chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty. In 2012, this committee released a report concluding that existing research on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is inconclusive. He has also researched the use of statistical methods for analyzing longitudinal data, as well as changes in criminal behavior over the human lifetime.

Nagin developed group-based trajectory modeling, a statistical method for identifying clusters of individuals who follow distinct developmental pathways over time. The method was introduced in his 1999 article "Analyzing Developmental Trajectories: A Semi-parametric, Group-based Approach" and elaborated in Group-based Modeling of Development (Harvard University Press, 2005). More recent reviews appearing in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology include  “Group-based trajectory modeling in clinical research”(2010) and “Recent Advances in Group-Based Trajectory Modeling for Clinical Research” (2024). It has been applied to study trajectories of behaviors such as aggression, delinquency, and substance use, as well as in medical research on disease progression and recovery. With collaborators including Bobby L. Jones, Richard E. Tremblay, Paul Rosenbaum, and Amelia Haviland, Nagin extended the method to handle multiple related trajectories, account for sample attrition, and combine it with propensity score matching for causal analysis.

Honors and awards

• Member, National Academy of Sciences (2025)
• August Vollmer Award, American Society of Criminology (2025)
• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023)
• Research.com Social Science and Humanities Leader Award (2023)
• Max Planck Law Fellow (2021)
• National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Reviewing (2017)
• Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award (2016)
• Stockholm Prize in Criminology (2014), shared with Joan Petersilia
• Fellow, American Academy of Political and Social Science (2014)
• National Associate of the National Research Council (2011)
• Edwin H. Sutherland Award, American Society of Criminology (2006)
• Life Member, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (2003)
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2002)
• Fellow, American Society of Criminology (1999)

Selected bibliography

• National Research Council. (1978). Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates. Panel on Research on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects, Alfred Blumstein, Jacqualine Cohen, and Daniel S. Nagin (Eds.). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
• Nagin, Daniel S., and Raymond Paternoster.  1993.  “Enduring Individual Differences and Rational Choice Theories of Crime.” Law and Society Review 27: 467-498.
• Laub, John., Nagin, Daniel S., and Sampson, Robert S. 1998.  “Trajectories of Change in Criminal Offending: Good Marriages and the Desistance Process.” American Sociological Review 63: 225-239.
• Nagin, Daniel S. 1999.  “Analyzing Developmental Trajectories: A Semi-parametric, Group-based Approach.” Psychological Methods 4: 139-177.
• Nagin, Daniel S. 2005.  Group-based Modeling of Development. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
• Nagin, Daniel S., and Tremblay, Richard E. 1999.  “Trajectories of Boys’ Physical Aggression, Opposition, and Hyperactivity on the Path to Physically Violent and Nonviolent Juvenile Delinquency.” Child Development 70: 1181:1196.
• Nagin, Daniel S. Cullen, Francis T., Jonson, Cheryl L. 2009. “Imprisonment and Reoffending.” In M. Tonry, ed., Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research (vol. 38). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Nagin, Daniel S. and Candice L. Odgers. 2010. “Group-based trajectory modeling in clinical research.”  Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 6:109-138.
• National Research Council. 2012. Deterrence and the Death Penalty. Daniel S. Nagin and John V.  Pepper (eds.). National Academy Press: Washington, DC.
• Nagin, Daniel .S. 2013.   “Deterrence in the 21^st Century: A Review of the Evidence.” In M. Tonry, ed., Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Nagin, Daniel S., Robert M. Solow, and Cynthia Lum. 2015.” Deterrence, Criminal Opportunities, and Police. Criminology 53: 74-100.

External links

• Daniel Nagin publications indexed by Google Scholar