Adam Serlin is the Founder & Principal of Independent Variable Consulting.
Prior to this role, he served as a Stoneleigh Fellow with The Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, where he helped Philadelphia’s youth justice stakeholders use data to drive more efficient, responsive, and cost-effective services for justice-involved youth.
Adam spent twelve years at NorthEast Treatment Centers (NET), most recently serving as its Director of Court Services. In this role, he was responsible for managing the agency’s In-Home Detention program as well as the city’s first ever Post-Adjudicatory Evening Reporting Center, an alternative to placement for Philadelphia’s highest-risk youth. He also worked with NET, the Department of Human Services, the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, and the Juvenile Probation Department to manage the city’s Sports for Juvenile Justice Initiative, where he helped coordinate the work of seven subcontracted sports agencies and three juvenile justice providers to enroll more than 300 youth in non-traditional sports lessons per year—an effort that won “Best New Project” at the international Beyond Sport Awards. Adam also supervised NET’s Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership program, helped the agency open Philadelphia’s only integrated model of In-Home Detention and Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Drug & Alcohol Treatment, and designed and implemented the Turning Point Case Management Program with Temple University Hospital, providing case management, therapeutic, and job training programs for victims of gun violence after their discharge from the trauma unit.
Beyond his work as a practitioner, Adam has been a featured speaker at the National JDAI Inter-Site Conference and currently sits on various local and state committeees focused on juvenile justice, violence prevention, and education issues.
Adam holds a BA from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an MPA and Certificate in Economic Development from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government.
