Meet Our Team

Emily Palmer is a longtime criminal justice reporter who investigates the systems that shape — and often fail — our most vulnerable kids. Her work covering some of the decade’s most high-profile criminal cases for The New York Times and People connects the dots between trauma, inequity and violence, revealing not just what happens but why. In 2025 she launched Next PAGE, a literacy nonprofit providing restorative creative writing workshops to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth in New York City, giving kids the tools to craft their own narratives.

Curtis is an equity-driven national education innovator and policy disruptor. The founder and CEO of the national nonprofit Boldly Moving Education Ahead, he pioneered the Liberating Learners framework, which couples culturally responsive teaching, restorative practices and trauma-informed care with A.I. and other cutting-edge technology to transform classrooms in New York, Chicago and Detroit. His work in alternative education and with kids in juvenile detention centers is deeply personal. Curtis is inspired daily by the tragic murder of his best friend and the conditions that caused the incident to occur over 20 years ago.

Jeanell is a distinguished operations leader and entertainment executive with expertise in diversity, equity, accessibility, & inclusion (DEAI) and learning and development. The co-founder of the independent publishing house, Elizabeth & Minnie Publishing, Jeanell is dedicated to identifying and amplifying diverse voices and stories. She previously served as the Executive Vice President of Impact and Inclusion for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she led the Academy’s initiatives to redress underrepresentation across the industry. In 2022 Variety named her a “New Leader in Hollywood” for her award-winning impact-producing work for the Oscars.

Josie is an actor, director and theater instructor who empowers young people through empathy and self-expression. She is the founder and former executive director of Drama Club, a theater program offering year-round weekly classes at New York City’s high-security youth detention facilities in Brownsville, Brooklyn and the South Bronx, as well as at two housing units for young people incarcerated on Rikers Island. Drama Club provides theater training and mentor relationships to youth on each step of their journey through the criminal justice system from detention and placement to probation and aftercare.

David is an innovative thought leader in the fields of criminal justice, violence prevention, and youth development. As the Executive Director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), a non-profit organization, he works to reduce incarceration and violence, improve the outcomes of system-involved youth and adults, and increase the capacity and expertise of the organizations that serve them. In 2025, The New York Times featured his own story: one that started with childhood arrests in Oakland, California and eventually led him to return to his hometown as the chief probation officer for Alameda County, seeking to help fix the system from the inside.

Simone is a queer writer and educator who believes in writing as a liberatory practice, with language having the capacity to transform personal and political landscapes. As the former Managing Editor for The Beat Within, a California-based publication by and for incarcerated youth, Simone brings over a decade of experience in non-profit programming, arts facilitation, and literacy development to her work with young people. Her poetry has earned her scholarships and fellowships from California Institute of the Arts, Community of Writers, and Miami Book Fair.

Margaret is a clinical psychologist who focuses on the treatment of complex childhood trauma and what comes after. With a holistic emphasis on understanding the children, as well as their families and caregivers, she co-developed the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) treatment framework. Margaret is the founder and director of the Center for Trauma Training in Needham, MA., working on local, regional and national collaborations dedicated to the empathic, respectful, and effective provision of services to these children and the adults in their lives.

Erika is an Assistant Professor at NYU Langone Health’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where her work focuses on the trauma-related needs of children that have experienced maltreatment. At NYU she has led multiple grant-funded projects focused on developing and implementing trauma-informed child welfare practices, with a focus on organizational assessment. Erika previously worked for New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services, where she led a department that planned, implemented, and oversaw program and policy development involving issues of health, mental health, intimate partner violence and substance abuse.