Maria Cardiellos

Maria Cardiellos has over 35 years experience in public safety and justice program development, implementation and evaluation, both nationally and internationally. She serves as the Executive Director of the IJIS Institute. In this capacity, she is responsible for the strategic direction and executive leadership of the organization. She oversees the operations of the nonprofit organization and is responsible for financial management of the Institute’s programs. She further contributes to the mission and direction of the organization that provides oversight to program management services to clients on the federal/state/local levels as well as serving its industry members. She also oversees the provision of training and technology assistance that complement the support of national initiatives. She previously served as Chief of Staff of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative PMO. She provided guidance on all programmatic and operational aspects of the initiative as well as is responsible for all the administrative functions of the program. She was also Chief Information Officer for the NJ Dept. of Law and Public Safety. She was responsible for coordinating and/or supporting IT related aspects of the State’s homeland defense solution. Prior to this position, she led cutting edge integration jobs for the public sector community including an Integrated Justice Project for the Province of Ontario, Canada, as well as the first privatized outsourced emergency communication operation in North America for Northampton County, Pennsylvania. She started her career with the Newark, NJ Police Department. She continued her work at Police Foundation in Washington D.C. where she developed its Training and Technical Assistance Division serving as Deputy Director.