Below are the biographies for CAP’s Art of Social Change: Child Welfare, Education, and Juvenile Justice spring 2022 speakers.
Michael Gregory
Michael Gregory is Acting Faculty Director of the Child Advocacy Program (CAP). 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 Child Advocacy Program. Crisanne joined CAP 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.
Julia Olson
Julia Olson is the Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel of Our Children’s Trust. She graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, with a J.D. in 1997. For the first part of her 22-year career, Julia represented grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. After becoming a mother, and realizing the greatest threat to her children and children everywhere was climate change, she focused her work on representing young people and elevating their voices on the issue that will most determine the quality of their lives and the well-being of all future generations. Julia founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to lead this strategic legal campaign on behalf of the world’s youth against governments everywhere. Julia leads Juliana v. United States, the constitutional climate change case brought by 21 youth against the U.S. government for violating their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources. Julia and OCT are recipients of the Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism. She received the Kerry Rydberg Award for Environmental Activism in 2017 and is a member of Rachel’s Network Circle of Advisors.
Anne Dailey
Having joined the UConn Law faculty in 1990, Anne C. Dailey writes and teaches primarily in the areas of family law, children and the law, constitutional law, and law and psychoanalysis. She graduated cum laude from Yale College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was articles co-chair of the Harvard Law Review. Prior to beginning her teaching career, Professor Dailey clerked for the Honorable Jose A. Cabranes, then of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Over the years she has served as both associate dean for academic affairs and associate dean for research and faculty development. Professor Dailey has held visiting professorships at Harvard Law School (Fall 2021), Yale Law School (2009, 2016), and University of Pennsylvania Law School (1995).
Professor Dailey’s scholarly work currently focuses on issues relating to children and law. Her recent publications include The New Law of the Child (Yale Law Journal 2018) and The New Parental Rights (Duke Law Journal 2021), both with Laura Rosenbury, and Prioritizing Psychological Parenthood (forthcoming Minnesota Law Review 2022), with Anne Alstott and Douglas NeJaime. She is the author of Law and the Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective (Yale University Press 2017), which has won the American Psychoanalytic Association’s 2018 Courage to Dream Book Prize, the UConn Humanities Institute 2018 Sharon Harris Book Award and The American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis 2018 Book Prize. Her work has been published in numerous law journals, including the Arizona Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Iowa Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Texas Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. In 2002, she was the recipient of the CORST prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association for the best interdisciplinary essay, a paper subsequently published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Since 2009, she has been a research fellow at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. In fall 2012, she was the Erikson Scholar-in-Residence at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA, and in fall 2015 she was a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Dailey is a member of the American Law Institute and on the advisory board for the new Restatement of the Law of Children.
Judge Gloria Tan
Gloria Tan is First Justice of Middlesex County Juvenile Court. She was appointed to the bench in 2013. She previously served as the Deputy Director at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute, where she taught and supervised law students representing indigent adults and youth in criminal and delinquency proceedings in Boston. She began her legal career as a public defender representing juvenile and adult clients in the Youth Advocacy Project and the Boston Trial Unit of the Committee for Public Counsel Services. She serves on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) Jury Management Advisory Committee, the SJC Advisory Committee on Massachusetts Evidence Guide, the MA Trial Court Standing Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution, and the Board of Trustees for the Flashner Judicial Institute. She was a recipient of the Massachusetts Bar Association Access Justice to Award in 2013 and earned her B.A. from Rice University and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Virginia Pryor
Ms. Pryor has more than 30 years of experience leading child welfare and social services policy and system improvement initiatives. Currently, she serves as the Acting Director for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, where she provides strategic direction and leadership. Prior to serving as Acting Director, Ms. Pryor also served as the Chief Deputy Director for the County, where she oversaw operations, services, and lead the efforts to reimagine child welfare through the strategic framework of Invest LA. She is deeply passionate and committed to bringing hope to vulnerable communities and organizations through human service innovation, leadership development, and strategic system and policy reform.
Before joining the LA County Department of Children and Family Services, Ms. Pryor served as the Senior Director of the Casey Family Programs Los Angeles Field Office and as a Senior Director of Strategic Consulting supporting more than 45 different child welfare jurisdictions. Casey Family Programs is a national child welfare foundation based in Seattle, Washington. She also served as the Director of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, where she managed the Child Welfare Department and the Office of Family Independence.
Ms. Pryor’s commitment to hope and inspiration also extends to her volunteer work as a mentor for youth in the foster care system, as well as her service as past Board Member and President of the Black Administrators in Child Welfare (BACW), an organization whose mission is to advocate for culturally appropriate services for African American children and families in the child welfare system. She has also served as Adjunct Faculty for the Schools of Social Work at Howard University and Virginia Commonwealth University, working to prepare the next generation of child welfare advocates.
Ms. Pryor is also the Principal of Immersion Consulting, which allows her to demonstrate purposeful inspiration by building the capacity of individuals, groups, and organizations to both lead and serve.
Frank Vandervort
Frank E. Vandervort, JD, is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School where he teaches in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic as well as Public Interest Litigation Ethics and Documentary Work and the Law. He has practiced child protection law for more than thirty years. His research interests include child protection, juvenile justice and interdisciplinary practice. Professor Vandervort is a Past President of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and is co-author and co-editor of the books Preventing Child Abuse: Critical Roles and Multiple Perspectives (Nova Science Publishers 2021) and Seeking Justice in Child Sexual Abuse: Shifting Burdens and Sharing Responsibilities (Columbia University Press 2010).
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 has trained 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 juvenile defenders. She now co-hosts, with the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), an annual week-long JTIP summer academy for trial lawyers and a series of “Train the Trainer” programs for experienced defenders. In 2019, Kris partnered with NJDC 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 juvenile 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 new book, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, was published by Penguin Random House in September, 2021. Henning serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, 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.
Tanya Coke
Tanya Coke directs the Ford Foundation’s Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice team, focusing on issues of mass incarceration, immigration and reproductive justice. Previously, she served as a distinguished lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, teaching courses on public policy and working on school-to-prison pipeline issues. Prior to that, Tanya was a program director on criminal justice for the Open Society Institute and a program manager for the US Human Rights Fund. She also served as a senior consultant to the Atlantic Philanthropies from 2010 to 2013, while running a strategic-planning consulting practice for social justice nonprofits and philanthropies.
Tanya began her career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as a researcher on its capital punishment project. After attending law school, she practiced as a trial attorney in the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society, defending clients in drug, immigration, and other federal matters in New York City.
She is a graduate of the New York University School of Law, where she was a Root Tilden public interest scholar and editor in chief of the law review, and she holds an undergraduate degree from Yale College.
Thena Robinson Mock
Thena Robinson Mock joined the Public Welfare Foundation in 2021 as its Program Director overseeing the foundation’s portfolios in the Southern part of the United States.
Thena is a racial justice lawyer with over a decade of experience advancing community-led efforts for education and youth justice. Previously, she served as Program Officer at Communities for Just Schools Fund, a national donor collaborative, where she managed a grants portfolio of grassroots community organizations leading local and national efforts for education justice and an end to the criminalization of Black and Brown youth in schools and communities.
Prior to her work with Communities for Just Schools Fund, Thena served as Director of the Advancement Project’s Opportunity to Learn Program, supporting local and state-based organizing campaigns to end the school-to- prison pipeline. Thena also served as Executive Director of Rethink, a New Orleans-based youth organizing and leadership organization. Earlier in her career, Thena served as a Staff Attorney for the New Orleans office of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Thena is currently an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, teaching the Education Justice & Civil Rights Seminar. She is a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and Hampton University in Virginia.
Judith Browne Dianis
Senator Karen E. Spilka
John Affeldt
Saa’un P. Bell
Saa’un Bell is Associate Director at Power California. She leads political, policy, and narrative strategy to build the political power of young voters of color. Her work includes expanding the vote to 16, building a bench of underrepresented gen z and millennial leaders to run for local and statewide political office, and redefining democracy and civic engagement in California. Previously, Saa’un organized Black and Brown youth and community college students to transform California’s education system at Californians for Justice for 11 years. Her organizing, strategy, and writing are deeply rooted in Eastside Long Beach, her Working Class, Black Southern, and rural Filipino Immigrant roots.
Sunindiya Bhalla
Sunindiya is Roca’s Executive Vice President of Women & 2Gen. She is responsible for overall program management, supervision, and coaching for Roca’s Young Mothers Programs in Eastern and Western Massachusetts, and the first out-of-state program replication in Hartford, Connecticut. Sunindiya also oversees Roca’s parenting and fatherhood work, and works on revenue generation, government affairs, and national positioning for Roca’s work related to young women and young parents. Sunindiya has over 15 years of experience in early childhood and 2Gen program development, strategy, and collective impact efforts across public and private sectors. Sunindiya graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. in Child Development and a Master’s in Public Health. She also holds an MBA in Nonprofit Management from the Heller School of Social Policy at Brandeis University.