Bruce is a senior fellow with NORC at the University of Chicago in the Public Health department. He has over 29 years of experience in applied research, field experiments, and statistical analysis. His work includes multi-method approaches using nationally representative household panels; organizational surveys with service providers, jails, and law enforcement; and the collection of survey and biospecimen data. He has conducted studies on violence prevention, violent offenders, victimization, policing, substance use and stigma towards substance use. His work has focused on identifying demographic and contextual explanations for a variety of forms of violent and related risky behaviors. He has conducted research funded by a number of U.S. federal sources, such as the Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Justice. His research has also been supported by state and municipal sources, along with several foundations and other private sources. 

At NORC, Bruce is the Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) of two Department of Defense evaluation contracts: Innovations in Sexual Assault Preventions Pilot Program (ISAPPP) Evaluation and the Evaluation Training and Technical Assistance Center (ETAC).  For CDC, he is the Project Director for a study on youth health and wellness issues and the PI for a grant on youth firearm violence perpetration using a nationally representative longitudinal design. For NIH, he is a Co-I for the Justice Justice-Community Opioid Innovation Network’s (JCOIN), Methodology Center (MAARC) analyzing the effectiveness of the JCOIN network of 11 clinical research centers testing the effectiveness of medicated assisted treatments for opioid use disorder. He was a Co-PI of the first comprehensive nationally representative longitudinal youth violence panel (STRiV) for eight years, a Co-PI of the Interpersonal Conflict and Resolution (iCOR) Study of young adults, and a Co-PI of the first national survey on victim service providers.

Prior to joining NORC, Bruce’s early work in violence research explored the psychological recovery process of sexual assault victims and explored the correlates of post-crime distress and social networks. In the mid to late 1990s, he implemented a five-year program of experimental longitudinal studies in New York City on the effects of a variety of interventions on the problem of intimate partner violence (IPV). This work was followed by randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of batterer treatment programs for men in community and jail-based settings. Since 2005, with funding from three U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) grants and two contracts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he conducted a series of field experiments on the effectiveness of primary prevention programs on IPV and sexual violence. Also, from 1998 to 2002, he was the deputy director of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, a program within the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice.