Michael Gregory
Michael Gregory is Faculty Director of the Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab (Y-Lab). Mike is also Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Senior Attorney at the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI). Mike teaches Harvard’s Education Law Clinic, in which law students represent individual families of traumatized children in the special education system and participate in TLPI’s larger systemic advocacy to create trauma-sensitive schools. Mike has also taught courses in Education Law and Policy and Education Reform Movements. Mike is a co-author of TLPI’s landmark report and policy agenda Helping Traumatized Children Learn, and is also a co-author of Educational Rights of Children Affected by Homelessness and/or Domestic Violence, a manual for child advocates. In 2009, Mike and Susan were named Bellow Scholars by the Association of American Law Schools, in recognition of TLPI’s advocacy for Safe and Supportive Schools legislation in Massachusetts. In 2013, Mike was appointed by Gov. Deval Patrick to serve on the Families and Children Requiring Assistance Advisory Board, a statewide panel that will advise the Commonwealth on the implementation of the reformed CHINS law. He received his JD from Harvard Law School in 2004, graduating cum laude. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in American Civilization from Brown University in 1998, and received a Master of Arts in Teaching, also from Brown University, in 1999. Mike began his work for TLPI in 2004 upon receiving a Skadden Fellowship.
Crisanne Hazen
Crisanne Hazen is the Assistant Director of Harvard Law School’s Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab (Y-Lab). Crisanne joined Harvard Law School in the summer of 2016. She came from San Jose, California, where she worked as a supervising attorney at Legal Advocates for Children and Youth (LACY), a program of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Starting at LACY as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in 2006, Crisanne developed a “know your rights” curriculum for pregnant and parenting teens, which she taught at 6 area high schools. Over the 10 years at LACY, she represented hundreds of teen parents in family law and restraining order matters, as well as directly represented children and youth of all ages in a variety of civil proceedings including family law, guardianships, housing, benefits, special education, and school discipline. She helped to start and later manage a medical-legal partnership clinic in the Pediatric Department of Valley Medical Center in San Jose. She also managed other population-based projects, including a CSEC project, transition-age foster youth project, and a foster youth identity theft project. Crisanne is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of California-Davis School of Law.
Tyler Whittenberg
Tyler Whittenberg is Deputy Director of Advancement Project’s Opportunity to Learn Program. In this role, he supports grassroots campaigns led by youth of color fighting to end the criminalization of Black and Latine students and create liberatory systems of education. Prior to joining AP, Tyler was Chief Counsel for Justice System Reform at Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Tyler has dedicated his entire career to ending the school-to-prison pipeline and dismantling oppressive structures systematically imposed upon Black and Latine youth. He began his career as an 8th grade social studies teacher in Columbia, South Carolina before receiving a M.A. in Politics and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a J.D. from Tulane University Law School. Tyler also advocated for the rights of youth in the justice and foster care systems as a Staff Attorney with the Youth Law Center and helped jurisdictions throughout the U.S. reduce racial and ethnic disparities in youth-serving systems while a Site Manager with the W. Haywood Burns Institute.
Jessica Alcantara
Jessica Alcantara is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Opportunity to Learn program at Advancement Project. Jessica supports Black and Latinx communities on issues of the school-to-prison pipeline and school closures, with the goal of increasing Black and Latinx students’ access to quality, sustainable community schools, as well as winning police free schools. She also works on the intersection of education law and immigration law.
Jessica joined Advancement Project in 2016 as a Skadden Fellow. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where she earned a B.A. in Geography and Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies, as well as a minor in Spanish Language and Literature. Following her time at Dartmouth she joined the Peace Corps, serving for two years as a Youth Development Volunteer in Azerbaijan. Jessica attended Columbia Law School, where she served as the Submissions Editor of the Columbia Journal of Race and Law. While at Columbia, Jessica also served as Admissions Chair of both the Black Law Students Association and the Latino Law Students Association, and was also involved with the Student Public Interest Network. She is an alumna of the Prep for Prep program in New York City, where she has also taught. Prior to law school, she earned a M.A. in Latin American and Latino Studies at Fordham University.
Betsy Fordyce
Betsy Fordyce, CWLS is an attorney, trainer, and policy consultant in Denver, Colorado. She has spent her career advocating for and with children, youth, and families in the child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and homelessness arenas. Through her company, Upstream Shifts, she works to strengthen the capacity of nonprofit organizations, government agencies, community coalitions, and individual practitioners to address system challenges and better meet the needs of young people. Betsy has worn numerous advocacy hats over the years, most recently serving as the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. She has also previously served as an adult ally for a youth-led organizing initiative for youth in foster care, supported nonprofit program and organizational development efforts, provided direct legal representation as a guardian ad litem in Colorado dependency & neglect and delinquency cases, engaged in teaching and training, and advocated in legislative and policy spaces. Betsy received her law degree from Villanova University School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish!). She discovered her passion for child/youth advocacy during law school as a Bergstrom Child Welfare Law Summer Fellow.
Jessie Henderson
Jessie Henderson’s life story exemplifies resilience, compassion, and the human spirit’s transformative power. His unconventional formative years led him through incarceration, homelessness, and addiction, which became the catalyst for his profound journey of personal growth and a steadfast commitment to uplifting others.
Today, Jessie serves in multiple roles, including as a Certified Peer Specialist for the University of Colorado Anschutz’s WORTH program, a facilitator, and a systems change analyst. His lived experiences equip him with unique insights that transcend textbook knowledge, enabling him to bridge the gap between individuals with incarceration backgrounds and the complex healthcare system.
Beyond his professional responsibilities, Jessie actively volunteers with organizations like Redemption Road Fitness Foundation, Forging Youth Resilience Denver, and the Colorado Department of Corrections Mile-Stone mentoring program. His approach centers on empowering underserved communities with a person-first ethos, driven by a heart firmly rooted in the struggles and triumphs of the human experience.
Jessie’s story is a testament to the indomitable spirit that inspires us all to make a difference, regardless of our personal histories. He envisions a world where cultural transformation bridges the divide between the powerful and the vulnerable, demonstrating the transformative power of resilience, compassion, and the human spirit.
Dr. Michael Paul Hemenway
Dr. Michael Paul Hemenway is a participatory cartographer and data scientist at Yostfish, principal data designer at Machines as Partners, and adjunct faculty in Experimental Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. For 20 years, Michael has been building collaborative teams to facilitate healthy organizational change through digital transformation in contexts including higher education, child welfare, mental health, AI technologies, and manufacturing. Michael thrives in combining the tools of data science (data integration, ETL, data visualization, and machine learning) with Design Justice Network principles, Liberating Structures, and Participatory Narrative Inquiry to facilitate conditions of possibility for teams and communities to thrive in change. He co-founded the Experimental Humanities Lab and Artificial Intelligence Institute at the Iliff School, where humanities research informs the responsible use and development of artificial intelligence in industry. For the past 2 years, Michael has been working with the Yostfish collective to embed community based practices into the Continuous Quality Improvement processes in California’s child welfare system at the state and local levels. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Puget Sound, a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Denver Seminary, and a Ph.D. in the study of Religion from the Joint Doctoral Program at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology.
Rachel Belin
Rachel Burg Belin (she/her) is the Managing Partner and, with young people, a co-founder of the Kentucky Student Voice Team. She has decades of experience supporting young people as research, policy, and storytelling partners, acting by turns as a social studies teacher, media literacy nonprofit innovator, education policy aide, development consultant, and commercial radio news director. In the course of this work, she has spearheaded nine different ventures specifically to amplify and elevate the voices of young people in civic discourse. With young people as collaborators, she has been the recipient of a Citizen’s and Scholars Civic Spring Award, the Kentucky Nonprofit Network Excellence in Public Policy Award, the Pathway 2 Tomorrow Breakthrough in Education Innovation Award, and a George Foster Peabody Award. Rachel holds a BA from Harvard University and an MAT from the University of Rochester.
Andrew Brennen
Andrew is Kentuckian and a co-founder, senior advisor, and board chair & treasurer of the Kentucky Student Voice Team. As a Black, LGBT high school student in Lexington, Kentucky, Andrew (he/him) experienced the impact of education injustice first hand. In response, he co founded the Kentucky Student Voice Team which helps to amplify and elevate students as partners in improving Kentucky schools. Nine years later, the Kentucky Student Voice Team has grown to over 100 members, led multiple successful legislative campaigns, published original, peer reviewed research and changed the narrative in Kentucky about the role students can play in creating more just and democratic schools. In 2020 Andrew was named a National Geographic Education Fellow and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree for his work co leading these efforts as well as supporting youth led movements worldwide.
Today, in addition to serving as a “senior” advisor to the Kentucky Student Voice Team, Andrew serves as an associate at The Omidyar Network where he facilitates grants to people and organizations seeking to strengthen American democracy and grow youth power. In addition to the Kentucky Student Voice Team, Andrew serves on the Board of Directors of Seek Common Ground, Student Voice, and the National Parent Teacher Association. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Center For Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) as well as Vote 16 USA.
Andrew holds a Master’s in Education Policy & Management from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ivy Litton
Ivy is a senior at Rowan County Senior High School in Morehead, located in Eastern Kentucky. She is passionate about education, equity, and social change and serves as Policy Coordinator for the Kentucky Student Voice Team. She is also the Programs Director for Kentucky High School Democrats and previously served on student government at her school. In her free time, Ivy works at a local coffee shop and competes in/coaches/captains speech and debate. After graduating high school, she plans to attend Washington & Lee university to major in Politics and minor in Poverty Studies and Education Policy.
Chase Colvin
Chase serves as Research Lead for the Kentucky Student Voice Team and is a Junior at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky. He seeks to uplift the communities around him through community service and action. Specifically, in his time with KSVT, he has helped collect and analyze data from a state-wide community action research study and conduct qualitative interviews to understand how students view their civic education.
Will Powers
Will is a graduate of Occidental College, where he studied diplomacy and world affairs and graduated as an Obama Scholar. He has worked for the Brookings Institution, Blue Haven Initiative, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee advancing social impact through policy making. Will is currently the policy and public engagement partner for the Kentucky Student Voice Team helping lead the Rose Revival campaign and supporting high school students to facilitate a series of public hearings related to issues raised in KSVT’s recently-filed legal complaint, Kentucky Student Voice Team v. The Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Luisa Sanchez
Luisa is a junior at Boyle County High School in Danville, Kentucky and the cross-organizational coordinator of the Kentucky Student Voice Team. She is also a writer and editor for the Team’s independent education journalism platform, The New Edu. As a member of KSVT, she aims to empower Kentucky students to use their voices to build up an education system that values and serves them. Outside of the organization, she is part of her school’s academic team, arts academy and various school clubs.
Julia Olson
Julia Olson is the Founder, Executive Director, and Chief Legal Counsel of Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit public interest law firm that provides strategic, campaign-based legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate system. Julia graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law (now UC Law San Francisco) in 1997, and founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010, initiating a global wave of rights-based climate litigation, especially cases brought on behalf of children. Julia is lead counsel in Juliana v. United States, the groundbreaking constitutional climate change case brought by 21 young Americans, including 11 Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth, against the U.S. government for violating their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, property, public trust resources, and equal protection of the law.
Our Children’s Trust represents the plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, where the first-ever constitutional climate trial in the nation’s history in June 2023 resulted in a sweeping win, affirmed by the Montana Supreme Court in December 2024, and in Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, which reached a groundbreaking settlement agreement to achieve zero emissions in all ground transportation, and interisland sea and air transportation, by 2045.
Julia and Our Children’s Trust are recipients of the Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism, the International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma’s Repairer Excellence Award, and the Climate Change Leadership Institute’s Climate Courage Award. She received the Kerry Rydberg Award for Environmental Activism in 2017 and the Katharine & George Alexander Law Prize in 2022. Julia is a member of Rachel’s Network Circle of Advisors and was named one of Bloomberg’s “Green 30 for 2020” and “Time100 Climate”.
Marsha Levick
Marsha Levick is the co-founder and Chief Legal Officer of Juvenile Law Center, America’s first public interest law firm for children. Throughout her career, Levick has advocated for youth involved in the justice and child welfare systems, in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Levick has participated in numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as federal and state courts nationwide. Notable cases include Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, Miller v. Alabama, and Montgomery v. Louisiana, all U.S. Supreme Court cases striking severe adult sentences for youth in the criminal justice system, and J.D.B. v North Carolina, requiring consideration of a suspect’s youth in the Miranda law enforcement/custody determination. Levick also spearheaded Juvenile’s Law Center’s work in the Luzerne County, Pa. “Kids for Cash” judges’ scandal, resulting in the vacatur of nearly 2500 juvenile adjudications and substantial financial awards to the youth and their parents. Levick serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights and is a member of the Dean’s Council of the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Levick has received numerous awards for her work, including the Philadelphia Award (2015) and the Philadelphia Inquirer Citizen of the Year Award (2009 – co-winner), as well as recognition for her work from the American Bar Association, American Association for Justice, the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Philadelphia Bar Association. Levick is an adjunct professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Kristin Henning
Kristin Henning is the Blume Professor of Law and Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law, where she and her law students represent youth accused of delinquency in Washington, DC. Kris was previously the Lead Attorney for the Juvenile Unit of the D.C. Public Defender Service and is currently the Director of the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center.
Kris trains state actors across the country on the impact of racial bias and trauma in the juvenile and criminal legal systems. Her workshops help stakeholders recognize their own biases and develop strategies to counter them. Kris also worked closely with the McArthur Foundation’s Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network to develop a 41-volume Juvenile Training Immersion Program (JTIP), a national training curriculum for youth defenders. She now co-hosts, with the Gault Center, an annual week-long summer academy for trial lawyers and a series of “Train the Trainer” programs for experienced defenders. In 2019, Kris partnered with the Gault Center to launch a Racial Justice Toolkit for youth advocates, and again in 2020, to launch the Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, a year-long program for youth defenders committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system through litigation and systemic reform.
Kris writes extensively about race, adolescence, and policing. Her book, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, was published by Penguin Random House in September 2021 and was featured on the front page of the New York Times Book Review and received rave reviews in the Washington Post. The book was awarded a 2022 Media for a Just Society Award by Evident Change and the 2022 Social Justice Advocacy Award from the In the Margins Book Awards Committee. Henning serves on the ABA’s Juvenile Justice Standards Task Force and ALI’s Restatement on Children and the Law project. She has won several awards including the 2021 Juvenile Leadership Prize by the Juvenile Law Center and the 2022 Women of Distinction Award from the American Association of University Women.
GeDá Jones Herbert
Education and civil rights expert, GeDá Jones Herbert, is the incoming Chief Legal Counsel at Brown’s Promise.
Jones Herbert began her legal career in private practice but has since focused her career around civil rights, criminal defense, and public policy. Recently she was Vis Before this, as Education Special Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, she managed a large, nationwide school desegregation litigation docket while also supporting advocacy and education policy efforts. Before joining LDF, Jones Herbert was an attorney at Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., focusing on appellate litigation and community education, and drawing the connections from slavery to mass incarceration in America.
Prior to law school, Jones Herbert served as an elementary school teacher in Nashville, Tenn., as a 2009 Nashville Charter Corps Member of Teach For America. During this time, she served in the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Policy, where she helped implement Tennessee’s Race to the Top grant award.
Jones Herbert received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. She also holds a Master’s degree in School Administration and Leadership from Lipscomb University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Spelman College. She is a longtime New Orleans resident, proud public school parent, wife, active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and board member and former board chair of Rooted School at Southern University at New Orleans.
Fatema Jaffer
Fatema began her career in education as a mathematics educator and community organizer in her parents’ home region, East Africa, and her hometown, Orlando, Florida. In 2021, she enrolled at Harvard Law School to learn how domestic and foreign laws and policies determine the quality of education a child receives.
During law school, Fatema served as Co-President of the African Law Association, Diversity and Equity Managing Editor of the CR-CL Law Review, Team Lead for Defenders, and Student Affairs Co-Chair for Student Government. She pursued clinics and internships in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Washington, DC, to better understand how lawyers utilize movements and coalition building to obtain education justice.
Upon graduation, Fatema joined the Southern Education Foundation and currently works as a Legal Fellow for Brown’s Promise.
Stephen Owens
Dr. Stephen Owens is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for Brown’s Promise, a new organization advancing school integration and resource equity via state court litigation.
Prior to joining Brown’s Promise Stephen was the Education Director for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, where he advocated for equitable and excellent public schools through research and data analysis. He started and led the statewide education funding coalition, Fund Georgia’s Future, to center the voices of those traditionally left out of the education advocacy space. Stephen’s work shaped debates on topics ranging from private school vouchers to school bus funding.
Stephen graduated from the University of Georgia, where he holds a doctorate with a focus on education policy. He lives in the greatest city in the world, Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and five children.