Daniel F. Wilhelm is President of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Under his leadership, the Foundation has increased its focus on research to inform policy and practice while maintaining its commitment to the highest standards of scholarship.

Prior to his appointment in 2017, Mr. Wilhelm served for 14 years at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nongovernmental organization working to improve systems of justice in the United States and abroad. As Vice President and Chief Program Officer, he was responsible for developing and overseeing the institute’s efforts on immigration, racial justice, mass incarceration, crime victimization, and other key areas. He also supervised Vera’s Washington, D.C., office and its communications and development activities. Mr. Wilhelm joined the institute in 2001 to work with government leaders on sentencing and corrections reform.

Previously, Mr. Wilhelm was an attorney at Sidley & Austin and served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has testified on crime policy before some 20 federal and state panels. Mr. Wilhelm has written for Vera, the American Journal of International Law, the American Bar Association, and the Federal Sentencing Reporter, where his work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, among others.

Mr. Wilhelm is a founding director of the Council on Criminal Justice and is a member of the Steering Committee of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. Mr. Wilhelm advises a number of university research initiatives on crime and justice issues.

Mr. Wilhelm is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, Harvard Divinity School, and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.