Examining Prosecution: Proceedings of a Workshop (2025)
Chapter: Appendix A: Planning Committee and Speaker Biosketches
A
Planning Committee and Speaker Biosketches
PLANNING COMMITTEE BIOSKETCHES
PREETI CHAUHAN (she/her/hers) is a professor in the psychology department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She is also co-founder and the former director of the Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ). Chauhan has a broad interest in examining the role of policies and practices that may create and sustain racial/ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system. Her work at DCJ has informed criminal justice policies and reform initiatives in New York City, New York State, and in other jurisdictions around the country. Chauhan currently serves on the editorial boards for Law and Human Behavior, Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, Psychology of Violence and Journal of Community Psychology. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency and is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice. Chauhan received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia and her B.A. and B.S. from the University of Florida. Her predoctoral clinical internship was completed at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center. Chauhan previously served as part of a cohort for the Local Solutions Support Center, where she served as a thought partner and was paid to write a blog on prosecutorial preemption. She also wrote a piece for the Local Power and Politics Review on the same topic, in collaboration with a prosecutor, grounded in the literature. Chauhan was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Law and Justice from 2018–2023.
AMANDA AGAN (she/her/hers) is an associate professor of economics at Rutgers University. Her research lies at the intersections of economics, law, and public policy and focuses on analyzing the impact of various criminal legal policies on outcomes for defendants
and on how criminal records affect employment opportunities. Agan has worked and is working with several prosecutor’s offices to collect data and study the impacts of different prosecutorial and criminal legal policies. She is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab - North America. Agan currently holds a grant from Arnold Ventures focused on causal impacts of prosecutorial decision making in New York and Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.
MARLENE BIENER (she/her/hers) serves as general counsel at the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA). She works directly with prosecutors across the country on criminal justice policies. Biener develops APA position statements as well as communicates with state and federal lawmakers about policy related to prosecutors and criminal justice. She oversees and designs trainings, resource guides, and APA publications to convey timely materials and education to prosecutors nationwide. Biener leads APA’s work in several areas, including domestic violence, prosecutor-led diversion, procedural justice, prosecutorial data dashboards and performance indicators, and advancing racial equity in the criminal justice system. Previously, she worked for the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, where she represented the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. Prior to becoming a Deputy Attorney General, Biener served as a law clerk for the Honorable Wayne J. Forrest, J.S.C. She graduated from Seton Hall University School of Law. Biener is admitted to practice law in the states of New York and New Jersey, the District of Columbia, and before the Supreme Court of the United States. She attended Ramapo College of New Jersey, where she received her B.A. degree in political science, with a minor in public policy.
MATTHEW EPPERSON (he/him/his) is an associate professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, where he also serves as Director of the Smart Decarceration Project. His research centers on developing, implementing, and evaluating interventions to reduce disparities in the criminal legal system. Epperson’s primary areas of focus include addressing risk factors for criminal legal involvement among persons with mental illnesses, as well as advancing evidence-based approaches to effective and sustainable decarceration. Most recently, he has led a series of multisite studies examining the
effectiveness and impact of prosecutor-led diversion programs. Epperson has more than 15 years of clinical and administrative social work experience in behavioral health and criminal justice settings. He has led research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation, among others. He is national Co-Leader of the Promote Smart Decarceration network, through the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative. Epperson led a research project on prosecutor-led gun diversion programs, funded by the Joyce Foundation, that ended August 2024. This funding was received through an invited application process. He received a B.S. in Sociology/Criminal Justice from Central Michigan, a M.S.W. from Grand Valley State University, and a Ph.D. from the Columbia University School of Social Work.
BRIAN D. JOHNSON (he/him/his) is professor and associate chair of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland. His research examines court actor decision-making, inequalities in the criminal legal system, and contextual variations in prosecution and punishment. Johnson’s work has been funded by organizations such as the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, and Arnold Ventures. Johnson has served in key advisory roles for organizations like Measures for Justice and Prosecutorial Performance Indicators. He is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and is the recipient of the ASC Gene Carte Student Award, Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award, and the DCS Distinguished New Scholar and Distinguished Scholar Awards. He is a recent co-editor of the journal Criminology and currently serves on the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy. Johnson’s published research appears in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Criminology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Social Forces, Justice Quarterly, and Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. He currently holds a grant from Arnold Ventures to study racial justice in prosecution in three jurisdictions in Maryland. It was obtained through a competitive grant process. Johnson received his M.A. and Ph.D. in crime, law, and justice from the Pennsylvania State University.
BESIKI LUKA KUTATELADZE (he/him/his) is a professor criminology and criminal justice at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University (FIU). He is also a founder and co-manager of Prosecutorial Performance Indicators,
a national research and technical assistance project focusing on prosecutorial reform. Prior to his appointment at Florida International University, Kutateladze was the founding research director at the Institute for State and Local Governance of the City University of New York and before that, research director for the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program of the Vera Institute of Justice. He specializes in performance indicators, prosecutorial discretion, racial disparities, and hate crime reporting and prosecution. The FIU Provost previously named Kutateladze FIU’s Top Scholar for Research, and he received a prestigious FIU Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity. He has served as a principal investigator on multiple National Institute of Justice-funded projects. Kutateladze received a M.A. in criminal justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a Ph.D. from the Kutaisi State University in the Republic of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in criminal justice from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
SPEAKER BIOSKETCHES
JOHN CHISHOLM is the (he/him/his) district attorney of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He has 25 years of prosecutorial experience and spent much of his early time as a line prosecutor trying to reduce gun related violent crime in Milwaukee. For example, Chisholm established and led a dedicated Firearms Enforcement Unit to address high rates of firearm related death and injury and collaborated with the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Firearm Injury Research Center to identify preventative strategies to reduce harm. He believes strongly in the obligation of the elected prosecutor to engage in community-led problem solving and expanded his nationally recognized Community Prosecution Unit to place experienced prosecutors in challenged neighborhoods to partner with law enforcement and citizens to develop long term solutions to the issues of concentrated disadvantage. Recognizing the pervasive role of trauma in shaping behaviors that lead to criminal involvement, Chisholm developed an early intervention program to accountably divert people from the criminal system and worked with advocates and medical professionals to develop the Sojourner Family Peace Center, a national model that combines shelter, therapeutic intervention and collocated services for families impacted by violence. He believes strongly in partnering with academic and philanthropic institutions committed to helping justice systems better understand and address the complex
challenges of racial and economic inequity in major urban centers, factors that heavily influence rates of violence.
JOHN CHOI (he/him/his) is the Ramsey County Attorney. He has become a state and national leader in progressive reform, working with public officials and impacted communities to reimagine justice and the role of prosecutors. Choi’s innovative approach to working collaboratively with system and community partners has transformed the way government responds to challenges in his community. He recognizes that achieving public safety and justice for all requires continual evaluation and improvement. Providing data not only helps leaders better understand, to make better informed decisions, but also publicly increases transparency and accountability with our community, which is key to systemic transformation.
ANN DAVISON (she/her/hers) is the first female city attorney and first mom to hold the highest legal office in Seattle city government. Her career in public service began more than 30 years ago when she was a caseworker in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the past three decades, Davison has been a champion for those without voice or power. She is committed to working with the region’s criminal justice community to reduce crime in Seattle and enforce the City’s laws and values. Prior to becoming city attorney, Davison worked in private practice. She has focused on areas including civil litigation, immigration, sports, contracts, business transactions, employment, and intellectual property. Davison received a B.A. in sociology from Baylor University and a J.D. from Willamette University College of Law. Afterward, she worked for the Seattle SuperSonics and was a law clerk in Marion County District Attorney’s Office in Salem, Oregon, then she became a practicing attorney and arbitrator in Seattle.
GIPSY ESCOBAR (she/her/hers) throughout her career has worked in the private, public, academia, and nonprofit sectors; all of which have taught her many important lessons she applies to her work in Product today. As Measure for Justice’s (MFJ’s) VP of Product and Design, she’s responsible for understanding the data needs of criminal justice agencies around three areas: quality, transparency, and community engagement. Escobar works cross-functionally with engineers, researchers, designers, and engagement specialists to translate these needs into solutions that improve the quality and use of data routinely collected by the system. She also
provides subject-matter expertise as a criminologist and researcher to ensure that the solutions MFJ develops are responsive to the complex needs of criminal justice stakeholders and follow best data practices. As MFJ’s director of research and analytics, Escobar incubated MFJ’s Research Team, and worked with national experts to design and validate a system of performance measurement for local criminal justice, and to develop a robust methodology to standardize the management of criminal justice data from varied sources across jurisdictions in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice from the City University of New York Graduate Center and John Jay College.
KIMBERLY M. FOXX (she/her/hers) the pioneering leader of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, as the first Black woman in this role, securing reelection. Her vision centers on transforming the office into a fairer, more transparent, and community-focused entity. Under Foxx’s tenure, substantial criminal justice reforms have been implemented to enhance public safety and equity. Notable achievements include the overhaul of the Conviction Integrity Unit, resulting in almost 250 overturned convictions and a historic mass exoneration. She was instrumental in crafting the 2020 Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, expunging over 15,000 cannabis convictions, rectifying the harms of the war on drugs, especially for communities of color. Recognizing the inequities of cash bail, Foxx spearheaded bond reform, advocating for recognizance bonds and raising the threshold for prosecution. Misdemeanor traffic offenses for unpaid fines are no longer prosecuted, allowing resources to be channeled toward addressing rising violent crime. Her commitment to transparency is demonstrated through the creation of an open data portal, providing public access to felony case-level data—a pioneering initiative nationally. Foxx is a prominent national speaker on social justice issues and has contributed to anthologies discussing criminal justice reform. Her extensive legal career includes serving as an assistant state’s attorney for 12 years and advocating for children in the child welfare system as guardian ad litem. As chief of staff for the Cook County Board President, she championed racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Foxx is a trailblazing advocate for justice reform, transparency, and equitable public safety in Cook County. Raised in Chicago’s Cabrini Green, she holds a B.A. in political science from Southern Illinois University and a J.D. from the SIU School of Law.
AMBER GOODWIN (she/her/hers) is an assistant district attorney in Travis County, Texas and founder of Community Justice. Community Justice is a gun violence prevention organization that builds power with and for Black and brown communities to end gun violence. While previously serving as executive director and currently as a senior advisor, Goodwin’s leadership worked in support of over $1.9 billion in state and local funds for community focused violence intervention programs across the country. While she was executive director, the Community Justice Advocacy Fund’s federal advocacy work resulted in an executive action that changed 26 federal grants across 5 agencies, worth $12 billion of federal funds to prioritize community focused violence intervention programs. She was part of the Biden-Harris Transition team as the lead organizer for gun violence prevention groups. As an assistant district attorney, Goodwin primarily works in the Special Victims Unit and serves as the district attorney’s liaison to the Office of Violence Prevention for the City of Austin. She also helped in the efforts for Travis County to draw down federal funds for local community violence intervention (CVI) work, including supporting the Safer Travis County Resolution that secured one million ARPA dollars for CVI strategies like hospital-based violence prevention work and a prosecutor-led gun diversion program in 2022. Goodwin also served as chair of the Austin Gun Violence Task force which helped to create and fund 1.4 million dollars towards the city’s first Office of Gun Violence Prevention in 2020. She has spent the past 25 years working for advocacy, grassroots, and electoral campaigns. Prior to founding Community Justice, Goodwin served as the first national advocacy director for Giffords, the gun violence prevention organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and United States Senator Mark Kelly.
OREN M. GUR (he/him/his) joined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) as director of research and a policy advisor to district attorney Larry Krasner, and now directs the District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab. The DATA Lab is a new unit dedicated to using data, research, and advocacy to inform policies and practices; increase equity, transparency, and accountability; and reduce harms through prosecutorial and systems reform in Philadelphia and beyond. The DATA Lab maintains the DAO public data dashboard. His work has included prosecutor-led bail reform, decriminalizing the possession of buprenorphine and fentanyl test strips, the 100 Shooting Review, and the 57+ Blocks Coalition, and he has
facilitated research on topics including bail reform, accidental drug overdoses and criminal justice contacts, the resentencing of juvenile lifers, and failure to appear among non-defendants. Gur’s training is in ethnographic interviewing and neurocriminology, and his research focuses on substance use, interpersonal violence, and the application of technologies in criminal legal systems. Prior to joining the DAO, he was an assistant professor of criminal justice at Penn State Abington. Gur’s B.A. in urban studies and M.S. in criminology are from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in criminology, law & justice is from the University of Illinois-Chicago.
JAMILA HODGE (Jami) (she/her/hers) became Equal Justice USA’s (EJUSA’s) second leader, bringing more than 15 years of criminal justice experience as a prosecutor, policy advisor, and technical assistance provider. Under her leadership EJUSA has expanded its reach throughout the country to replace policing, mass incarceration, and executions as responses to violence with responses that advance racial equity, center those most impacted by violence, and promote safety, healing, and accountability that repairs. Hodge comes to EJUSA after launching the Reshaping Prosecution Program at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she and her team worked with progressive prosecutors, community-based organizations, and people impacted by the system to develop policy and practice reforms to end mass incarceration and reduce racial disparities within the system. One of the signature initiatives she launched was Motion for Justice, which centers racial equity in transforming the role of the prosecutor and aims to implement concrete racial equity strategies in partnership with community-based organizations. Before Vera, Hodge logged many achievements across a 12-year career in the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. She spent four of those years as a community prosecutor focused on intervention and prevention of harm. Hodge also served in the Office of Legal Policy, where she helped shape policies for people returning from incarceration and those seeking access to counsel in criminal proceedings. Later, she worked in the office of then-Vice President Joe Biden as an advisor on criminal justice and drug policies. She has demonstrated her expertise on CBS, MSNBC, ABC Nightline, and many other media outlets. Hodge earned a B.A. in psychology and sociology at the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law.
DEANNA R. HOSKINS (she/her/hers) is president and chief executive officer (CEO) of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA). Dedicated to cutting the U.S. correctional population in #halfby2030, JLUSA empowers people most affected by the criminal justice system to drive reform. Hoskins is a nationally recognized leader and a formerly incarcerated person with experience as an advocate and policy expert at the local, state, and federal level. Prior to joining JLUSA as its president and CEO, she served as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice, managing the Second Chance Act portfolio and serving as deputy director of the Federal Inter-Agency Reentry Council. Before that, Hoskins served as a county director of Reentry in her home state of Ohio. She has always worked alongside advocates who have been impacted by incarceration and knows that setting bold goals and investing in the leadership of directly impacted people is a necessary component of impactful, values-driven reform.
ALEXIS KING (she/her/hers) is the district attorney for Colorado’s First Judicial District, serving Gilpin and Jefferson counties. Prior to her current role, she worked as a deputy district attorney for ten years, focusing on how children are treated in our community and leading the Human Trafficking Unit. Thereafter, King served as a magistrate judge in Denver and worked as a Title IX and victim rights attorney at the Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center. Since taking office, she has created a Conviction Integrity Unit, enforced bond reform, developed a prefile diversion program, and led Colorado in the largest prosecutorial data transparency project in the country. King earned a B.A. at Hollins University in Virginia and graduated from the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver.
AARON MALLORY (he/him/his) is the founder and chief executive officer of GRO Community. He founded GRO Community to assist males, particularly males of color, that are often misunderstood and outcasted within our society. Mallory has more than 10 years in the field, working with specifically African American males with diverse behavior challenges. He has provided direct service work at UCAN within their transitional living shelter for young adult males, HRDI as a child and adolescent therapist. Mallory has served in leadership roles as the clinical supervisor at HRDI and clinical director at Heartland Alliance Readi initiative.
OJMARRH MITCHELL (he/him/his) is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on criminal justice policy, particularly in drug control, sentencing, corrections, and racial fairness within the criminal justice system. More broadly, Mitchell examines the effectiveness and equity of criminal justice sanctions. His recent work investigates prosecutorial discretion and its impact on case processing, outcomes, and racial disparities in Florida’s courts. Mitchell has received several awards for his research on racial and ethnic issues in the criminal justice system, including the Western Society of Criminology’s W.E.B. Du Bois Award and both of the National Institute of Justice’s W.E.B. Du Bois Awards. He has served in numerous advisory roles, such as on the U.S. Department of Justice’s Science Advisory Board, New York City’s Pretrial Research Advisory Council, Philadelphia’s Pretrial Reform Advisory Council, and the Executive Board of the American Society of Criminology. Mitchell is also the vice president-elect of the American Society of Criminology and the editor-in-chief of Criminology & Public Policy.
ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF (she/her/hers) is an award-winning legal scholar and criminal justice expert; she is the Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She writes about criminal courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal system. Her book Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal (Basic Books) reveals the powerful influence that misdemeanors exert over the U.S. criminal system. Natapoff’s book Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice (NYU Press), won the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award Honorable Mention for Books. Her original work on criminal informants has made her an international expert. Natapoff is a Guggenheim fellow, a member of the American Law Institute, and a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School. She has helped draft state and federal legislation, and her work appears frequently in judicial opinions as well as the national media. Prior to joining the legal academy, Natapoff served as an assistant federal public defender in Baltimore, Maryland.
CAROLINE NOBO (she/her/hers) is a research scholar in law and executive director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, where she provides strategic direction and leadership to the Justice Collaboratory’s unique network of interdisciplinary scholars and staff.
Her research as a criminologist focuses on promoting trust and legitimacy in the criminal legal system. Nobo’s expertise includes procedural justice, policing, gun violence, data systems, community-based research methodologies, and the progressive prosecutor movement. She is the co-author of the book Legitimacy-Based Policing and the Promotion of Community Vitality. She is often featured translating research into policy for global audiences, and lectures at universities across the world. Nobo sits on the board for a Connecticut non-profit serving incarcerated parents and their children. Prior to joining Yale, she was the director of data outreach for the non-profit Measures for Justice, and a senior researcher at Abt Associates. She holds a B.A. in sociology from Mount Holyoke College and a M.S. in criminology from the University of Pennsylvania.
AURÉLIE OUSS (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines how good design of criminal justice institutions and policies can make law enforcement fairer and more efficient. Ouss’ work, conducted in collaboration with court actors in place like New York, Philadelphia or Paris, has been published in journals such as Science, The Journal of Political Economy, or The Quarterly Journal of Economics. She has been leading a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania embedded at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, which has facilitated increasingly impactful and nuanced analyses of the justice system. Ouss received a B.A. in econometrics and sociology from École Normale Supérieure, a Master’s in economics from the Paris School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. She had a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
MELBA PEARSON (she/her/hers) is an attorney specializing in civil rights and criminal law, with an emphasis on policy. She is the director of prosecution projects at the Gordon Institute for Public Policy, and co-manager for the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) project based at Florida International University. The PPIs aim to bring more transparency, equity, and racial justice to the criminal justice system. Pearson also serves as faculty in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She has a consulting practice through her firm MVP Law, which includes victims’ rights work, assessments of police departments and creating community engagement strategies around criminal justice/civil rights issues. Before joining FIU,
Pearson spent three years as deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. She worked to change police practices, expand voting rights, and reform the criminal justice system. Previously, Pearson was an assistant state attorney in Miami-Dade County for 16 years, culminating as assistant chief in the Career Criminal/Robbery Unit supervising junior attorneys while prosecuting homicides. She serves as chair-elect of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, and immediate past president of the National Black Prosecutors Association Foundation. Pearson regularly provides legal analysis for CourtTV, Law & Crime, local networks, and through op-eds that have been published in the Miami Herald, Washington Post, and other national outlets. She is the editor/author of the book Can They Do That? Understanding Prosecutorial Discretion. Lastly, she hosts a video podcast show #MondayswithMelba, as the Resident Legal Diva. Pearson was the progressive candidate for Miami Dade state attorney, garnering a strong showing across party lines.
CARRIE PETTUS (she/her/hers) is a leading social work scholar dedicated to advancing social equity and wellbeing among those involved in criminal legal and justice systems. As the founder and chief executive officer of Wellbeing & Equity Innovations, she collaborates with government and community partners to improve outcomes through research-practitioner partnerships. Pettus’ research expertise includes trauma, behavioral health, violence, and family systems in criminal legal and justice settings, such as diversion and deflection, incarceration, and reentry. Her work is recognized for its impact on the field. Pettus has been widely published, is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events, and her research has been featured in major media outlets. Committed to data justice, she chairs the Grand Challenges for Social Work, focusing on addressing social inequities. Pettus’ research has significantly influenced policies and practices, establishing her as a key figure in using research to drive systemic change. With a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work, Pettus has also served as a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis and Florida State University.
HAROLD F. PRYOR (he/him/his) was elected Broward state attorney (Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit). He leads a staff of 462 employees, including 213 prosecutors, whose mission is to make our community safer while working to ensure justice, equity and fairness for everyone
affected by our criminal justice system. Pryor is the first Black state attorney in Broward and the first Black man to be elected state attorney in Florida. His legal career includes experience as a prosecutor, a civil attorney in private practice, and as a corporate lawyer. Pryor started his legal career serving as a Broward assistant state attorney prosecuting serious criminal offenses. He also practiced in the private sector where he specialized in business litigation, the Federal Communications Commission, consumer-related issues, employment law, and commercial transactions.
DALIA RACINE (she/her/hers) is the Douglas County district attorney. She was elected as the first woman and person of color to serve in this role in her community. Racine brings almost 20 years of prosecutorial experience where she specialized in crimes against women and children, human trafficking, and homicides. She has championed the role of prosecutors to keep communities safe by implementing innovative practices that reduce potential repeat offenders who cause harm by connecting them to resources that bring individual and community healing, while also holding dangerous offenders accountable in our prison system. Racine serves on numerous boards across Metro Atlanta that impact community change.
STEVEN RAPHAEL (he/him/his) is professor of public policy and the faculty director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). He holds the James D. Marver Chair at the Goldman School of Public Policy. Raphael’s research focuses on the economics of low-wage labor markets, housing, and the economics of crime and criminal justice policy. His is a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research; the California Policy Lab; the University of Chicago Crime Lab; IZA, Bonn, Germany; and the Public Policy Institute of California. Raphael holds a Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley.
JEFF REISIG (he/him/his) has been a prosecutor for over 27 years and has been the Yolo County’s chief elected law enforcement official. During his tenure as district attorney, he has focused intently on advocating for victims of crime and pursuing a balanced approach to public safety through methods designed to enhance accountability while also embracing programs to reduce recidivism and the criminal justice footprint.
MICHAEL REMPEL (he/him/his) is director of the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a research center that focuses on mass incarceration, racial and ethnic disparities, and low-level enforcement. His current work includes overseeing a multiyear study of New York’s bail reform law; analyzing New York City’s jail population and identifying promising strategies to reduce it; and studying racial disparities at multiple stages of the criminal justice continuum. Rempel previously worked at the Center for Court Innovation, serving as the agency’s founding director of jail reform and, before that, serving for 16 years as the agency’s research director. In the final years of his tenure, he was the lead-author of a data-driven roadmap for reducing New York City’s use of incarceration; led multiple studies related to risk-need assessment; studied racial disparities in misdemeanor arrests and prosecutions; and co-created and evaluated a pilot project to reduce court backlogs in Brooklyn, New York. In the first decade of the 2000s, Rempel led numerous studies examining drug treatment courts, diversion programs, and court responses to intimate partner violence.
PATRICK ROBINSON (he/him/his) is the founder and owner of VSV Leadership, a consultancy specializing in organizational leadership, coaching, project management, design thinking, and data/management opportunities. He co-founded Prosecution Leaders of Now, a national leadership development community for prosecutors featuring coursework hosted by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Prior to starting VSV Leadership, Robinson led strategy and grant-making for innovation in prosecution at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He is an experienced military prosecutor and former special assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of Texas. During his service in the U.S. Army, Robinson served as a prosecutor and defense counsel, and he deployed to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom as a Special Operations legal advisor. Following his military service, he returned to school as a Pat Tillman Scholar, earning a M.B.A. from Stanford University and graduating as an Arjay Miller Scholar. Patrick received a law degree from the University of Virginia, and he received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame.
MONA SAHAF (she/her/hers) is the director of Vera’s Reshaping Prosecution initiative, which helps communities increase public safety by shrinking the front end of the legal system, addressing racial disparities in prosecution, and increasing prosecutors’ collaboration with the people most impacted by their decisions. Before joining Vera in 2021, she worked as a federal prosecutor in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions section at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, focusing on domestic violence and national security cases. At DOJ, Sahaf built a program to protect Central American migrants who were kidnapped in Mexico. In addition to her work at Vera, she serves on the boards of organizations working to preserve Kashmiri culture and secure human rights in Kashmir. Sahaf holds a B.A. in history and government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.
HANNAH SHAFFER is an assistant professor at Harvard Law School. Her research uses empirical methods to study how discretion moves through the criminal legal system—from arrest to charging to sentencing to rearrest—and how decision-makers’ beliefs impact their discretionary choices. Shaffer recent research uses administrative court records to examine racial disparities in criminal charging and sentencing—specifically how prosecutors interpret and respond to racial disparities inherited from police and earlier decision-makers in the criminal process. To understand more holistically what drives these empirical patterns, she surveys prosecutors and links their reported beliefs to their real-world decisions. In future work, she plans to explore how racial disparities in individual police officers’ arrests impact downstream charging and sentencing decisions. Shaffer has several scholarly works that are recently published or under revision, including “Prosecutors, Race, and the Criminal Pipeline,” 90 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1889 (2023); “Brokers of Bias: Do Prosecutors Compound or Attenuate Racial Disparities Inherited at Arrest?” with Emma Harrington; and “Prediction Errors, Incarceration, and Violent Crime,” with Emma Harrington and William Murdock III. She received a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, J.D. at Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University.
RONALD D. SIMPSON-BEY (he/him/his) is a national leader in the movement to decarcerate America, currently working as the executive vice president of Strategic Partnerships
for JustLeadershipUSA. He is also an alumnus of their Leading with Conviction Fellowship. Simpson-Bey is an LPI Trained Leadership Coach and is prominently featured in the book, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Reuben Jonathan Miller. He is also a contributing author to the book, Smart Decarceration: Achieving Criminal Justice Transformation in the 21st Century. Simpson-Bey serves as the vice-chair for the American Bar Association (ABA) Criminal Justice Section Victims Committee, and as a special advisor for the ABA Criminal Justice Section council. He serves on the Advisory Committee for the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the Texas LBJ School of Law. Simpson-Bey also serves as the board president of the Michigan Center for Youth Justice, as the board treasurer for the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, as a co-founder of Nation Outside in Michigan, and is a co-founder of the Michigan Collaborative to End Mass Incarceration. Simpson-Bey attended Eastern Michigan University, Mott Community College, and Jackson Community College.
TESSA SMITH (she/her/hers) works for Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency in Woodland, California. She started her work as a family partner and community educator on mental health and suicide prevention. This work informed her involvement with the Health and Human Services Agency HSA Cultural Competence Committee for years before evolving to her current Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator role. Smith’s work includes multi-level engagement on health and racial equity issues at an interpersonal, community, and systemic level. She has been a district attorney’s Multi-Cultural Community Council (MCCC) member for seven years and the MCCC chair for the past five years.
DON STEMEN (he/him/his) is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Loyola University Chicago. He was previously the director of research on sentencing and corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice. Stemen’s research focuses on criminal case processing, prosecutorial decision making, and prosecutorial performance measurement, and he is currently one of the co-managers of the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators—a national effort to improve the data and analytic capacity of local prosecutors’ offices. He has over 20 years of experience working with local, state, and national government partners to reform criminal justice practice and policy. Stemen’s work has been supported through grants from the National Institute of Justice, the National Institute of
Corrections, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative, and the Open Society Foundation. He received his Ph.D. in law and society from the Institute for Law and Society at New York University.
CAROLINE WONG (she/her/hers) is a Multnomah county deputy district attorney who has prosecuted a wide variety of misdemeanor and felony offenses over the past 20 years. She currently supervises attorneys in the Child Support Enforcement Division and is assigned other duties focusing on research and evaluation, grant writing/management, specialty courts, and innovative diversion programs. Wong served as a community prosecutor for many years, working closely with community members and neighborhoods on livability issues. She was a part-time criminal justice instructor at Portland Community College and a legal instructor for the Portland Police Bureau. Wong worked as a law clerk for the Oregon Department of Justice Appellate Division and as a civilian for the Department of Defense Judge Army General (JAG) Corps in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She received a Bachelor’s Degree from Pacific University and her J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law.
