Advisory Board
Lenore Anderson
Co-Founder + President, Alliance for Safety and Justice
Lenore is the co-founder and President of Alliance for Safety and Justice, and founder of Californians for Safety and Justice. She is an attorney with extensive experience working to reform criminal justice and public safety systems. Lenore was the Campaign Chair and co-author of Proposition 47, a 2014 California ballot initiative to reduce incarceration and reallocate prison spending to mental health, drug treatment, K-12 programs and victim services. The initiative represents the first time in the nation voters have elected to reclassify multiple sections of the penal code to reduce incarceration and reallocate state money from prisons to communities. More than half a billion dollars has been reallocated from state prisons to community-based public safety programs. She also served on the Executive Committee for California’s Proposition 57 to expand prison rehabilitation and earned credit for release and Florida’s Amendment 4 to provide voting eligibility to people with old records in Florida. Previously, Lenore served as Chief of Policy and Chief of the Alternative Programs Division at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she spearheaded innovative initiatives to expand alternatives to incarceration and build community partnerships. She also crafted local and state legislation to aid victims of domestic violence and protect violent crime witnesses. Lenore also previously served as Director of Public Safety for the Oakland Mayor, overseeing the Mayor’s violence reduction initiatives, and as Director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice where she oversaw the city’s violence prevention grants and launched city-community partnerships to improve public safety. Lenore serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Innovations in Prosecution of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is a member of the California Health and Human Services Agency’s Behavioral Health Task Force. She served as the inaugural Chair of the Board of the Center for Youth Wellness, an initiative to reduce the health impacts of toxic stress on urban youth. She holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law and a B.A. from UC Berkeley, and lives with her family in Oakland, California.
Neil Barsky
Founder, The Marshall Project
Neil Barsky has enjoyed a varied career in the fields of journalism, finance and film. He is founder and former chairman of The Marshall Project, the Pulitzer Prize-winning non-profit journalism enterprise covering the American system of criminal justice with the goal of sparking a national conversation about reform. He has been an award-winning newspaper reporter, working for the New York Daily News and the Wall Street Journal. He also had a career in finance and served as an equity research analyst in the areas of real estate, casinos and hotels for Morgan Stanley. Neil went on to build two hedge fund businesses, Midtown Capital and Alson Capital Partners. Following his retirement from the financial world in 2009, Neil directed and produced the critically-acclaimed documentary film Koch, which aired nationally on PBS's POV series, and taught economics at Oberlin College. Neil is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Lawrence Bartley
Publisher, The Marshall Project Inside
Lawrence Bartley is the publisher of The Marshall Project Inside, the organization’s publications intended specifically for incarcerated audiences. He is also the host and executive producer of Inside Story, a new video series delivering trustworthy reporting to incarcerated people and the broader public. He has served as founder and director of News Inside, the print publication of The Marshall Project, which is distributed in hundreds of prisons and jails throughout the United States. News Inside received the 2020 Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. Lawrence was a member of the team behind “The Zo,” winner of the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence and Innovation and recipient of an Emmy nod in the area of News & Documentary. He is also an accomplished public speaker and has provided multimedia content for CNN, PBS, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC and more.
Sunny Bates
Sunny is a born connector, operating wherever executives, thinkers, artists, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators, philanthropists connect and collide around the globe. Her genius is developing networks of extraordinary people and connecting their ideas in surprising ways toward concrete outcomes. As an author, serial entrepreneur, mentor and advisor, her client roster has included some of the world’s most prominent companies and organizations, from GE, TED and Credit Suisse to MTV, the National Academy of Sciences, Techstars and Kickstarter, of which she is a founding board member.
Scott Budnick
Scott Budnick is a film producer, Founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, and CEO of 1Community, a film, television, and new media co-financing company that uses the power of storytelling to encourage and inspire positive global change.
As the Executive Vice President of Todd Phillips’ Green Hat Films, Budnick produced Old School, Due Date, and the highest-grossing R-rated comedy trilogy in film history, The Hangover, which grossed over $1.4 billion.
Since 2004, Scott has been a fierce advocate for social justice and a fairer judicial system. In 2003, he began volunteering with InsideOUT Writers, which brings creative writing into juvenile halls. In 2014, he founded ARC, whose mission is to reduce incarceration, improve the outcomes of formerly incarcerated individuals, and build healthier communities. ARC provides formerly incarcerated men and women with direct services such as housing, counseling, job training and opportunities, mentoring, and education. The organization also empowers and mobilizes its members to play a role in justice reform efforts through policy advocacy.
For his work with youth in the criminal justice system, Gov. Jerry Brown named Scott the 2012 California Governor’s Volunteer of the Year. He sits on the Board of State and Community Corrections and serves as a Board Member for President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.
Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll
Growing up in a challenging environment in Oakland, CA, plagued by the crack epidemic, Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll faced numerous hardships, including illiteracy and homelessness. He found solace and support from his peers in the streets, who guided him towards survival through illegal activities. Tragically, during one of Wall Street’s crimes, a person lost his life, and Wall Street was sentenced to 54 years to life in prison. However, incarceration became a turning point for Wall Street.
In prison, Wall Street taught himself to read and write, eventually earning his GED. His thirst for knowledge extended beyond basic education, as he delved into college courses, self-help programs, and even studied the stock market. This passion for self-awareness and financial independence led him to co-develop a behavior-targeted finance philosophy called FEEL.
With the support of many prison wardens and the CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Wall Street was able to create a curriculum and officially teach the FEEL program in five different prisons. Despite being incarcerated, his message resonated with countless individuals, as evidenced by his extensive media coverage, including a TED Talk with 10 million views, features in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Market Watch, and appearances on shows like the Nightly Business Report and NPR's Kitchen Sister.
After spending almost 27 years behind bars, Wall Street was released from prison on December 10, 2022. Since his release, he has devoted his efforts to the founding of FEEL Inc., a financial wellness company focused on teaching financial literacy and emotional awareness. Alameda County has become one of FEEL’s first clients, highlighting the recognition and value of Wall Street's unique perspective and expertise.
James “JC” Cavitt
Program Director, Project Rebound
James "JC" Cavitt is the Program Director at Project Rebound, California State University Fullerton. He is currently pursuing his Doctoral degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Hope International University, having already earned his master’s degree in Social Work from California State University, Long Beach. JC graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from California State University, Fullerton, and an Associate of Arts degree from Mount Tamalpais College, in San Quentin.
Having spent over two decades of his life incarcerated, JC brings his firsthand experience with the criminal justice system and the carceral education system to the higher education space. JC has dedicated much of his career to working within Restorative Justice frameworks, specializing in supporting incarcerated trauma survivors, system-impacted families, and changing the narratives about incarcerated individuals. He is a member of the UnCommon Law Clinical Support Team, where he provides trauma-informed trainings to staff and counseling support to incarcerated individuals. Additionally, JC serves as a facilitator with the Fundamentals of Fatherhood Program in Long Beach, where he leads weekly parenting classes for system-impacted fathers seeking to regain custody of their children.
JC has been recognized for his work and has been featured in numerous publications, articles, podcasts, and media platforms, including a TED Talk with John Legend, TEDxSanQuentin, Now This News and CORE IQ educational training videos. When people experience trauma or severe life stressors, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel. JC’s greatest passion is to help people, make a difference in the world and help change lives for the better.
Delia Cohen
Founder, Proximity for Justice
Vision architect Delia Cohen specializes in turning extraordinary ideas -- involving the arts, cutting-edge technology, and new media -- into reality. The common theme of her projects? They all attempt to make the world a better place.
Notable endeavors include running the messaging department at the Clinton White House during impeachment and transition; helping organize the first and second Clinton Global Initiatives; producing Richard Avedon’s last work, a photo-essay on democracy for The New Yorker; rebranding Goldie Hawn’s education foundation; managing Nokia’s $1million global investment challenge; and pulling together in 15 months an extremely ambitious TED Prize project – a global film event called Pangea Day.
However, Delia’s most interesting, challenging, and rewarding work has been in criminal justice reform. For the last decade, Delia has been leveraging her unique network of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, correctional leadership, activists, entertainers, and entrepreneurs to organize TEDx events in prisons around the United States. With Delia’s guidance, incarcerated people, correctional officers, prison administrators, and community members collaboratively plan and curate each event. Following Bryan Stevenson’s call for advancing justice through proximity, half of the attendees are community leaders and half are incarcerated. Numerous attendees have found the experience unforgettable and transformative, spurring a wave of criminal justice activism and philanthropy. Shared on the TEDx YouTube channel, videos from the prison events have gone viral across the globe and comprise an unprecedented archive of authentic voices and ideas for criminal justice reform.
Delia lives in upstate New York in an 18th-century Dutch Colonial farmhouse with her dog Buddy.
Elizabeth Gaynes
Founder, Proximity for Justice
Elizabeth Gaynes served as the Osborne Association’s President and CEO before stepping down in April of this year. Over the course of her 38 years at Osborne, the organization grew from a staff of 3 to more than 300, with headquarters in the South Bronx, and program sites in Harlem, Brooklyn, Newburgh, Buffalo, and 30 NY prisons and jails, with programs that divert people from jail and prison, provide services for incarcerated people and their families during incarceration, and offer a wide range of reentry supports. Liz is a nationally recognized expert on the impact of incarceration and reentry on children and families. Following the incarceration of her children's father in 1984, she designed FamilyWorks, the first comprehensive parenting program in a men’s state prison and the longest continually operating prison fatherhood program in the country. She serves on the Governor's Prison Redevelopment Commission, focused on the redevelopment and re-use of 12 closed upstate prisons. Osborne is near completion of the redevelopment of the former Fulton Correctional Facility, which will soon provide 135 beds for transitional reentry housing for older men returning to NYC after serving long prison terms. Along with her daughter, Emani Davis, Liz was the first nominee from the Global North for the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child for their work on behalf of children of incarcerated parents. Liz began her career as a defense attorney in connection with the 1971 Attica prison uprising. Before joining Osborne, she was a staff attorney at Prisoners Legal Services of New York and an Associate at the Pretrial Justice Institute in Washington, D.C. Liz received her undergraduate and law degrees from Syracuse University.
Philip Melendez
Philip Melendez is the Director of Special Projects at Smart Justice California, where he leads the organization’s Get Proximate Program. Through prison visits and other gatherings, Phil works to bring people with power and influence into proximity with mass incarceration and in conversation with currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. As a formerly incarcerated individual himself, Phil is a staunch advocate for prison and sentencing reform, and hopes to bring home many of the good people he left behind.
After nearly 20 years of incarceration, Philip returned home September of 2017. Today, his work with SJCA builds on Phil’s extensive experience coordinating events – during and after his incarceration – to connect community leaders, survivors of harm, and incarcerated people to reimagine justice. In addition to prison visits, Philip has led and participated in many coalitions advocating for numerous prison and sentencing reform bills in the California Legislature.
Taylor Milsal
Taylor runs a farm and conservation trust in New Hampshire. Previously, she was the TEDSocial Director, orchestrating independently organized events worldwide for the TED community. Taylor was the Managing Partner at Cotor, Inc., helping corporations create technical solutions to business problems.
Zach Moore
Zach Moore is a senior software engineer at a tech company in San Francisco. Incarcerated at the age of 15, he spent the next 22 years of incarceration attaining an Associates degree and learning to code via The Last Mile (TLM) program. Upon his release in 2018, he worked as a software developer for TLM before landing an internship at Checkr, where he eventually converted to a full-time employee. In 2023, he was promoted to a senior software engineer role. He considers himself an ambassador for those currently and previously incarcerated, and looks for ways to increase opportunity and equity in Tech.
Dan Pacholke
Dan Pacholke served the Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) for 33 years, starting as a Correctional Officer and retiring as Secretary in 2016. In 1985, he worked in one of the first intensive management units (IMUs) in Washington State and 25 years later he led the effort to reduce the use of IMUs that resulted in a 52% reduction in the use of segregation. That work is described in a 2016 US DOJ Bureau of Justice Policy Brief, More than Emptying Beds: A Systems Approach to Segregation Reform. In 2004, while serving as a prison superintendent, he launched a series of ecological, environmental restoration and conservation projects that expanded throughout the state and eventually became a national network, the Sustainability in Prisons Project. In 2008 he engaged in focused strategies to reduce violence in prisons resulting in a 30% reduction in inmate violence. Following the murder of a WADOC correctional officer in 2011, he implemented multiple innovative staff safety initiatives described in a publication he co-authored, Keeping Prisons Safe: Transforming the Correctional Workplace. In 2014, he gave a TED Talk, How prisons can help inmates live meaningful lives. Today, he uses his deep understanding of correctional practices and provides expert testimony and investigative consulting services for clients such as the ACLU, the US DOJ Civil Rights Division, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He has provided opinions on conditions of confinement, segregation/restricted housing/solitary confinement, death row placement, wrongful death, use of force, religious freedom, the management of incarcerated transgender people, and operational issues concerning the management of people with mental health issues in restricted housing. His goal is to support safe, humane, and rehabilitative correctional practices.
Anne Rice
Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Lehman College, CUNY, Anne Rice helped found Lehman’s Reentry Initiative, has taught college inside New York state prisons for eleven years, and is part of the Leadership Committee of the New York Consortium for High Education in Prison. Rice has coached speakers for TEDx prison events nationwide. She recently brokered an MOU between Hudson Link and Lehman College developing wraparound services for students completing college degrees begun in prison.
Judith O. Rubin
Judith O. Rubin is Chair of the Board of Playwrights Horizon. She served for eight years as a member of the National Council on the Arts of the NEA, and for six years as a member of the board of Theatre Communications Group. In June, 2004 she completed three years as a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee and is now a member of the Advisory Board of the American Theatre Wing and of the Administration and the Rules Committees of the Tony Awards. She is a member of the New York State Council on the Arts, the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Board of the New York Community Trust, and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Board of Overseers. She has served on the Yale University Council Committee on Theater at Yale, and the Board of Regents of the State of New York, representing the First Judicial District (Manhattan). She is a director of the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, and a trustee of The Mount Sinai Health System in New York and of its School of Medicine. She is a former trustee of Public Radio International, and the Center for Arts and Culture, a cultural policy think tank in Washington, D.C. She was Commissioner for Protocol for the City of New York during the four years of the Dinkins Administration and is a former president and chairman of the 92nd Street Y, a large cultural center in New York. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and is listed in Who’s Who of American Women.
Robert E. Rubin
Robert E. “Bob” Rubin began his career in finance at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York City in 1966. Mr. Rubin served as vice chairman and co-chief operating officer at Goldman from 1987 to 1990 and as co-senior partner and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992. Before joining Goldman, he was an attorney at the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City from 1964 to 1966.
Long active in public affairs, Mr. Rubin joined the Bill Clinton administration in 1993 as assistant to the president for economic policy and as director of the newly created National Economic Council (NEC). At the NEC, he coordinated economic policy recommendations to the president and monitored the implementation of the president’s economic policy goals.
In January 1995, Mr. Rubin was appointed as the United States’ seventieth secretary of the treasury. He served for four and a half years, until July 1999, during which he was involved in balancing the federal budget; opening trade policy to further globalization; acting to stem financial crises in Asia, Mexico, and Russia; helping to resolve the impasse over the public debt limit; and guiding sensible reforms at the Internal Revenue Service.
From 1999 to 2009, Mr. Rubin served as a member of the board of directors at Citigroup and as a senior advisor to the company. In that capacity, he worked extensively with the firm’s clients around the world.
Mr. Rubin is one of the founders of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy project housed at the Brookings Institution that offers a strategic vision and innovative policy proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans.
Mr. Rubin is the author of The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World (2023) and In An Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington (2003, with Jacob Weisberg), which was a New York Times best seller and was named one of Business Week’s ten best business books of the year. He has also written op-eds on the U.S. economy and other topics in such publications as the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Mr. Rubin is chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is vice chairman of the board of trustees at the Mount Sinai Health System and chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which is the nation's leading community development support organization with thirty-eight offices nationwide. From 2002 to 2014, he was a member of the Harvard Corporation, and from 2016 to 2022, he served as a member of its Finance Committee. Mr. Rubin joined Centerview Partners in 2010 as a senior counselor of the firm. In his role at Centerview, he serves as a sounding board and advisor to clients across the firm’s various activities, bringing years of experience in finance and public policy.
Mr. Rubin graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1960 with an AB in economics. He received an LLB from Yale Law School in 1964 and attended the London School of Economics. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other universities. He was born in New York City in 1938 and is married to Judith Oxenberg Rubin, who served as the New York City commissioner of protocol for four years under Mayor David Dinkins. The Rubins have two children.
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor is the Youth Outreach Coordinator for Cal Poly Humboldt’s Project Rebound, a Humboldt County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission Commissioner, and a First District Appellate Project Board Member. Along with Delia, Mark helped organize the first-ever TEDx event in a California prison. Mark was sentenced to 26 years to life for a crime that occurred when he was 23 years old and served 21 ½ years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He earned six Associate of Arts and Science degrees while he was incarcerated. Upon his release Mark earned a Bachelor of Social Work Degree from Cal Poly Humboldt, graduating with honors. Mark is currently studying in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Master of Social Work Program and aspires to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Mark also facilitates courses for the Prison Arts Collective. Before joining Project Rebound, Mark worked as the Northern Regional Manager for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition’s Hope and Redemption Team. Mark is a staunch advocate of criminal justice reform and has dedicated his life to helping others surmount the challenges associated with life after incarceration.
John Wetzel
John Wetzel is the CEO and founder of Phronema Justice Strategies, LLC. John is the former Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections from 2011 - 2021. In 1989, John began his career in corrections as an officer at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. He then transferred to the Berks County Prison, where he held the positions of correctional officer, treatment counselor, supervisor of treatment services and training academic director, until becoming warden of the Franklin County Jail in 2002. John was appointed as the state Board of Pardons’ corrections expert in 2007 and confirmed as secretary of corrections in 2011. He retired in 2021 as the longest-serving Secretary of Corrections in the history of Pennsylvania. John will also be launching a non-profit that focuses on Pennsylvania county criminal justice programs and national reform work. He is the father of four daughters and a graduate of Bloomsburg University.
Earlonne Woods
Co-producer, Co-host, Co-creator, Ear Hustle
Earlonne Woods was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, he was sentenced to 31-years-to-life in prison. While incarcerated, he received his GED, attended Coastline Community College and completed many vocational trade programs. He also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law, the statute under which he was sentenced. In November 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne’s sentence after 21 years of incarceration. Upon his release, Earlonne was hired by PRX as a full-time producer for Ear Hustle, and he continues to work with Nigel, contributing stories about re-entry. He is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing).