Richard J. Gelles is Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also holds The Joanne and Raymond Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence. He is the Director for the Center for Research on Youth & Social Policy and Co-Director of the Field Center for Children's Policy Practice & Research. Gelles is an internationally known expert in domestic violence and child welfare and was influential in the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. His first book, The Violent Home (1974), was the first systematic investigation to provide empirical data on domestic violence. More recent books, such as The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives and Intimate Violence in Families (3d ed), have also made a significant impact in the study of child welfare and family violence. He is the author of 24 books and more than 100 articles, chapters and papers.
