Zachary Norris, Co-Director

Zachary is an attorney from Oakland, California.  He is formerly a Soros Justice Fellow and the director of Books Not Bars, a campaign of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. For 7 years, he worked to build California’s first statewide network for families of incarcerated youth. The campaign contributed to efforts to close 5 youth prisons in the state, passed legislation to enable families to stay in contact with their loved ones and defeated Prop 6 -- one of the state’s most destructive and ineffective ballot measures. He attended the Labor Community Strategy Center’s National School for Strategic Organizing in Los Angeles, California, is a former board member at Witness for Peace and Just Cause Oakland and is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University School of Law. 

Grace Bauer, Co-Director

Grace Bauer is a respected leader and a trusted confidant for families seeking justice across the country. Grace is the mother of three children from Sulphur, Louisiana whose first exposure to the juvenile justice system came as the parent of a court-involved youth who, at age 14, was sent to a notorious juvenile correctional facility where he was abused and mistreated. Grace became a passionate advocate for juvenile justice reform.  Grace helped organize other parents to form the Lake Charles chapter of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC).  As the Director of FFLIC’s Lake Charles office, Grace rapidly recruited and trained new members, successfully increasing FFLIC’s visibility and influence as a community stakeholder. The chapter became an integral part of the “Close Tallulah Now Campaign” which successfully advocated for the passage of the Louisiana Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 and, soon thereafter, led to the closing of the infamous Tallulah juvenile prison.  Under Grace’s leadership as Co-Director, FFLIC quickly became known as the nation’s leading parent organization campaigning for greater fairness, reduced incarceration, improved services and better conditions of confinement in juvenile justice.  Grace joined the Campaign for Youth Justice in 2008, where she worked to unite the parents and allies of children in six targeted states to change laws and practices that result in children being prosecuted and confined as adults. Grace also led the development of the National Parent Caucus, a national network of family members who have joined together to end the misguided practice of trying, sentencing and incarcerating children as adults.

IN-KIND TEAM MEMBERS

(PARTIAL LIST)

Charisa Smith, Research Associate

Charisa Smith is an Attorney at Advocates for Children of New York, Inc. in the Probation Initiative. Charisa provides educational advocacy to families with youth on probation; offers trainings for such families, youth, probation officers, and various other professionals; and collaborates with government officials and advocates to improve the system. Charisa is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Children’s Studies Program at the City University of NY (CUNY), Brooklyn College.   She is the incoming President of Cooperation for a Non-Violent Future, Inc. Charisa is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School.  Charisa is a licensed attorney in New York, New Jersey and Virginia who is fluent in Spanish.

Dahni-El Giles, Communications and Development Associate

Dahni-El is the NYC Regional Director of Leadership for Educational Equity, inspiring, training, and supporting Teach for America alumni to pursue their passion for education equity via  high impact careers in community organizing, advocacy, policy, or elected office. Prior to this role, he worked as a commercial attorney at Kraft Foods providing general business counseling for commercial, development, and confidentiality agreements, strategic endeavors, and disputes within the procurement, corporate affairs, customs, logistics, R&D, and sustainability functions. Previous to Kraft Foods, Dahni-El co-founded DonorsChoose.org, now a $150M+ nationwide non-profit organization, serving as the inaugural Operations Director. Later, he was appointed Acting Executive Director of DonorsChoose Los Angeles. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Dahni-El is a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Donnel Baird, Policy Associate

Donnel Baird grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn and Stone Mountain Georgia. Donnel graduated from Duke University in 2003. He worked for the nation's largest supportive housing developer in Brownsville, Brooklyn for three years.. Donnel spent two years working as a field director on the Obama 2008 campaign across 8 states.

In 2009 Donnel began management of a national campaign to leverage Dept. of Energy stimulus funding with labor union assets to encourage Governors and Mayors in over a dozen states to invest in home energy efficiency construction as a triple-bottom line industry. The campaign was able to organize significant Community Workforce Agreements that ensure the access of unemployed and chronically disadvantaged populations to green construction jobs that provide health care and a living wage in Washington DC, New York State, Portland, OR, Milwaukee, WI, and Cincinnati Ohio.

Larcenia (Larcy) Cooper, Research Associate

Larcy will graduate in May 2012 from Columbia Law School. During law school, Larcy interned at the Brooklyn Office of the Juvenile Rights Practice at Legal Aid and participated in the "Challenging the Consequences of Mass Incarceration Clinic" as a legal advocate for inmates.  Prior to attending law school, Larcy worked at UBS Investment Bank as a Public Finance Analyst, and then took on a role helping to manage the Social Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School.  Upon graduation, Larcy will work at Alston + Bird, LLP in the Financial Services & Products Group.   

Ashley Graham, Research Associate

Ashley earned a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Law from Binghamton University in 2006.   While in law school, she worked as a research assistant for the executive director of Brooklyn Law School's Center for Health, Science, and Public Policy, as well in South Africa for as a legal intern with several human rights organizations. 

Lynn McKee, Research Associate

Lynn graduated from New York University with a B.A. in History and was a recipient of NYU’s Founders’ Day Honors Scholar Award. She is currently completing her M.A. in Social Studies for Secondary Education at Brooklyn College. Lynn lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her twins, where they own a local coffee shop. She divides her time between her family, business, and studies and will be applying to Political Science PhD programs in the fall.

Robin Axelman, Research Associate

Robin is from Los Angeles, California and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from UCLA in 2010, Magna Cum Laude, with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Public Affairs. Currently, Robin is a first year law student at New York Law School, concentrating in Family Law and Juvenile Advocacy, and will obtain her JD in 2013. Through the Justice Action Center at her school, Robin participates in the Street Law Project in which she mentors middle school students in the Bronx, teaches them about their Fourth Amendment rights and police interaction, and prepares them to participate in a moot court. Robin also volunteers at the Red Hook Youth Court where she trains youth to serve as jurors, judges, and attorneys. Upon graduating law school, Robin aspires to be a juvenile advocate, defending juveniles involved in Family Court and Criminal Court proceedings. 

Maylen Ortiz, Research Associate

Maylen came to the US from Dominican Republic in 2005.  He is an undergraduate student at John Jay College. As a Humanities and Justice major, he is exploring fundamental questions about justice from a humanistic, interdisciplinary perspective. He is particularly interested in how race and class impact one’s treatment within criminal justice systems and one’s notion of ‘justice.’ Maylen worked as a secretary in the John Jay College Of Criminal Justice African American Studies Department and is fluent in Spanish and English.