Austin, TX
Eve Stephens is a retired police chief at the University of Texas, Austin. Before that, Stephens was a commander with the Austin Police Department and is currently assigned to the North Central Patrol Bureau. She was the 2nd Asian female to be hired by the department and is the first Asian female to promote to Sergeant , Lieutenant, and also Commander. In her tenure with the department, she has held assignments in patrol, Child Abuse, Internal Affairs, Financial Crimes, Street Narcotics, Staffing, and the Training Academy. While working in Staffing, one of Commander Stephens’ responsibilities was keeping track of the demographics of the department. It was there that she first noticed the number of female officers in the department was below the national average for a major metropolitan area. This set into motion her research on female officers at APD and women in policing in general. In 2018, she created the first Women’s Mentorship Program for female cadets at the Academy and paired with an academic to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. Because of her work on the Mentorship Program, the Texas Police Chiefs Association asked her to participate in a committee to create a state level mentorship program for female officers. Her research passion continues to be women in police work and how to get the numbers up!