Lawrence Bartley
Lawrence Bartley is the 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 is the recipient of the 2020 Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. Lawrence was a member of the teams behind “The Zo,” winner of the 2020 Oline Journalism Award for “Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling” and “What Do We Really Know About the Politics of People Behind Bars?” which was an honorable mention recipient for the 2020 Phillip Meyers Awards. He is also an accomplished public speaker and has provided multimedia content for CNN, PBS, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC and more.
Alex Frank
Alex Frank is the director of Policy and Democratic Governance at Race Forward, where she leads efforts to strengthen a just, multiracial democracy through narrative and policy change. A strategist, clinical social worker, artist and advocate, Alex advances racial equity by bridging community-rooted innovation with government-facing reform. She is also an author and public speaker, contributing thought leadership to movements for racial justice, public safety transformation and democratic governance. Previously, Alex served as director of Root Solutions for Public Safety at Race Forward, assistant commissioner at the New York City Department of Correction at Rikers Island, co-founder and director of the Restoring Promise Initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, and a leader within the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Justice Strategy Group. She is an adjunct professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School and a licensed therapist specializing in trauma and grief. Throughout her career, Alex has partnered with justice systems to confront racial inequity and advance restorative, healing-centered and anti-racist policy change grounded in partnership with the people most impacted by mass incarceration.
Ashley Goldon
Ashley Goldon is a social worker, systems innovator and nationally recognized justice reform leader whose work centers the leadership of directly impacted communities. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from South University, a Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California, and a doctorate in social work. Ashley is a 2021 JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction Fellow and a 2023 Leading with Conviction Award recipient. She previously served as executive director of Nation Outside, a Michigan-based, formerly incarcerated-led organization that expanded to 12 chapters statewide and secured a $2 million state investment to pilot Peer Led Reentry — an initiative grounded in her original ecological framework, Collective Carceral Impact, which advances systems-level approaches to reentry and post-carceral barriers. She is the founder of Impact(FUL) Consulting LLC, a firm led by justice-impacted professionals providing trauma-informed, evidence-based support to organizations advancing equity and system transformation nationwide. She also serves as a deputy sheriff in Genesee County, Michigan, bringing a rare cross-system perspective to justice, accountability and public safety.
Cristi Hegranes, Chair
Cristi Hegranes is executive director of a private grantmaking foundation that supports organizations working to strengthen the systems shaping rights, health and safety — particularly for women and girls. Previously, she founded and led Global Press, an award-winning organization producing ethical, accurate global journalism, where she served as CEO for nearly two decades. Her work has focused on advancing dignity-centered reporting and building sustainable, accountable models for international journalism. Cristi is an Ashoka Fellow and has received numerous honors, including the Society of Professional Journalists Journalism Innovation Prize, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, and was named Distinguished Young Alumna of New York University in 2015. Cristi is the author of “Byline: How Local Journalists Can Improve the Global News Industry and Change the World” (Forbes, 2023).
Yukari Kane
Yukari Kane is a founder and CEO of Prison Journalism Project. She is an author, educator and veteran journalist with 20 years of experience. She was a staff writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, and her book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs (Harpers Business) was a best-seller, translated into seven languages. Yukari has taught journalism fundamentals, investigative reporting and the Medill Justice Project at Northwestern University and was previously a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. At San Quentin News, where she still serves as an advisor, she developed a curriculum and reader for prison journalism. She is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Emerging Leaders Council and is a 2021-2022 Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow.
Lynn Oberlander
Lynn Oberlander is a leading media attorney and advocate for journalists, currently of counsel with the law firm of Ballard Spahr LLP. Previously, she was a senior vice president and associate general counsel, media, for Univision Communications Inc., from 2018 through 2020, while also serving as executive vice president and general counsel at Univision’s subsidiary, Gizmodo Media Group where she oversaw the legal operations of one of the nation’s largest digital news companies, including the websites Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Deadspin, The Root, and Splinter. From 2014 through March 2017, she was the general counsel, media operations for First Look Media Works, the publisher of national security website The Intercept and documentary film project, Field of Vision. She founded and led the company’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, which provides funding for cases in support of the First Amendment and other press freedoms. From 2006 until 2014, she was the general counsel of The New Yorker, where she also wrote for newyorker.com on media law topics. Earlier in her career, she spent five years each at Forbes and NBC. She is a frequent speaker on freedom of expression and media law topics and gave testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on “Secrecy Orders and Prosecuting Leaks: Potential Legislative Responses to Deter Prosecutorial Abuse of Power.” Lynn is a graduate of Yale and Columbia Law School and she teaches graduate courses in media law and media ethics at The New School in New York. She is the former board chair of the Media Law Resource Center as well as the New York Bar Association’s Communications and Media Law Committee.
Shaheen Pasha, Secretary
Shaheen Pasha is a founder and chief education officer of Prison Journalism Project and an associate teaching professor at Penn State University, focused on mass incarceration and prison education. Prior to that, Shaheen was an assistant professor at UMass Amherst, where she launched an immersive explanatory journalism class at the Hampshire County Jail, bringing incarcerated and UMass students together to learn. She was awarded the Knight Nieman Visiting Fellowship in 2018 to expand her work teaching journalism behind bars. Shaheen is a veteran journalist with over 20 years of experience at outlets such as Thomson Reuters, CNNMoney and Dow Jones/WSJ. She is currently serving on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project.
Jennair Rennie, Treasurer
Jennair Rennie is a business executive with more than 20 years of experience who specializes in finance and operations. Jennair is head of finance and accounting for Colture Holdings, a boutique sports and entertainment management startup. She previously held financial leadership roles at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She received her Master of Business Administration from Rutgers Business School.
Steve Seleznow
Steve Seleznow is a community-centered chief executive known for his leadership across multiple sectors: philanthropy, large public education systems and higher education. A relationship builder, Seleznow has worked closely with widely diverse groups: from ranchers and Indigenous peoples in Arizona to the White House, governors, mayors, superintendents and union leaders; from governing boards to community organizers; from global investment managers to corporate leaders; and from children facing dire conditions to high net-worth individuals and families. Most recently, he completed 13 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Arizona Community Foundation, one of the 25 largest community foundations in the U.S. He served as program director and deputy director of U.S. Programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation leading implementation of a $2.5 billion investment strategy focused on education reform. Prior to that, he was a partner and Chief Investment Officer of Venture Philanthropy Partners in Washington, D.C., one of the nation’s first charitable funds to apply the principles and best practices of venture capital to investments in the non-profit sector. Seleznow served on the Visiting Committee of the Board of Overseers for the Harvard Graduate School of Education and held appointments as associate research professor and special assistant to the dean of the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development. He has served on numerous boards and commissions focused on improving lives and building equitable communities. Seleznow divides his time between Scottsdale, Arizona, and Silicon Valley, where his wife Nicole Taylor leads the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Louise Story
Louise Story is a longtime journalist, media executive and filmmaker. She is the co-author of a forthcoming book about the Black-white wealth gap to be published in 2024 by HarperCollins, and she teaches an M.B.A. course on race and economics at The Yale School of Management. At The Wall Street Journal, Louise ran all news coverage strategy and also the Journal’s product and technology teams. At The New York Times, Louise ran the live video unit and co-authored The Times’ digital transformation plans. Much of Louise’s career, she has been an investigative reporter and in that capacity, she uncovered three of the most notable fraud cases of the past 15 years . She was a leading reporter covering the 2008 financial crisis. She also produced and wrote “The Kleptocrats,” a feature-length documentary that aired on the BBC, in festivals worldwide and is now on Amazon and Apple. (Photo credit: ChiChi Ubina)
Celeste Trusty
Celeste Trusty is state legislative affairs director for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, where she works with impacted community members, lawmakers and other stakeholders to advocate reforms to our overly-punitive sentencing laws and policies. She was appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf to serve on the Judicial Conduct Board of Pennsylvania in 2020; and was appointed as secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons for the final year of the Wolf administration, where she oversaw the commonwealth’s clemency process. Celeste was also named to City and State Pennsylvania’s Power of Diversity: Black 100 list in both 2022 and 2023, as well as their 2024 Black Trailblazers list. She is grateful for the opportunity to work closely with so many incredible organizations, lawmakers and community members to transform our system into one that more closely resembles justice.
Cindy Wenig
Cindy is a former corporate attorney who pivoted her career to focus on criminal legal advocacy and philanthropy through the Wenig Family Charitable Fund. She served as General Counsel of Apollo Real Estate Advisors and previously was a partner at the law firm Chadbourne & Parke. Past volunteer endeavors have included serving as pro bono counsel in the rebuilding of The World Trade Center and the development of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. She is a recipient of the Lawyers Alliance of New York’s Cornerstone Award for excellence in pro bono work. Currently, Cindy serves on the Board of Directors of Young New Yorkers, a sentencing diversion program for youth. She is an advisor to Ameelio.org, a free prison communications tech platform, as well as JobPaths, an employment platform for military veterans. Cindy graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School.