Our Team
We are a multi-disciplinary team of academics and students in law, data science, and social science that conducts research and disseminates data and reports on the Second Chance Gap in expungement and racial disparities in the California criminal justice system pursuant to the Racial Justice Act.
Faculty and Advisors
Colleen Chien
Founder and Director
Colleen V. Chien is a Professor of Law at Berkeley Law School and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. She founded and directs the Paper Prisons Initiative. From 2013-2015 she served as White House Senior Advisor on Intellectual Property and Innovation and she currently serves in a part-time capacity as Marian Croak Distinguished Scholar at the USPTO.
Navid Shaghaghi
Web Tools Manager
Navid Shaghaghi is a lecturer and researcher in the department of Computer Science & Engineering (CSEN) of the School of Engineering, and the department of Information Systems and Analytics (ISA) of the School of Business at Santa Clara University.
Hithesh Bathala
Advisor
Hithesh Sekhar is a software development engineer at Amazon, an Information Systems M.S. graduate, and alum of the Paper Prisons team who continues to support the project.
Jessica Jackson
Special Advisor
Jessica Jackson is an American human rights attorney and Chief Advocacy Officer at REFORM Alliance. She is also the co-founder of #cut50, a national bipartisan effort aimed at reducing America's incarceration rate. She served as the youngest mayor of the city of Mill Valley.
Adam Osmond
Advisor
Adam Osmond, an accountant and data analyst, has spent years collecting and analyzing large public data including criminal data from Connecticut spanning decades. He is passionate about criminal justice reform, as he has witnessed the lasting impact convictions have on the livelihoods of others.
William Sundstrom
Faculty Advisor
Dr. William Sundstrom is the Stephen and Patricia Schott Professor of Economics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. His research interests include poverty and inequality, the economic history of labor markets, education and related institutions, and the economics of race and gender.
Matthew Stubenberg
Advisor
Matthew Stubenberg is an Innovator in Residence at William S. Richardson School of Law and formerly worked as a researcher at Harvard Law School's Access to Justice Lab. He also created the MDExpungement.com website which has generated over 100,000 petitions for expungement.
Robert Apel
Advisor
Dr. Robert Apel is a criminologist and Professor at Rutgers University-Newark whose research focuses on the intersection of crime, the justice system, and the labor market.
David Ball
Advisor
David Ball is a Professor of Law at Santa Clara Law and a leading cirminal justice scholar. He is currently Co-Chair of the Corrections Committe of the ABA's Criminal Jutice Section and has been an actor, filmaker, and Rhodes scholar.
Law & Research Team
Jenny Stukenberg
Law Student
Jenny is a law student at Berkeley Law. Prior to Law School, Jenny had a career in Data Science and spent many years volunteering at immigration non-profits. Jenny is interested in economic justice issues and plans to pursue a career enacting consumer-friendly legislation in California.
Bennett Cyphers
Law Student
Bennett Cyphers is a 3rd year law student at Berkeley. Before law school, he was a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he investigated ad tech and government surveillance.
Audrey Im
Computer Science
Audrey Im is a backend software engineer working for DoorDash with an interest in public policy, looking to leverage her technical acumen for social good.
Alivia Dawson
Legal Studies
Alivia Dawson is a second-year undergraduate student intending to study legal studies at UC Berkeley. She is passionate about reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system and hopes to one day pursue a successful career in law.
Sarah Michelle Varley
Sociology
Sarah Varley, a senior sociology major at UC Berkeley and Regents' and Chancellor's Scholar, aims to attend law school after graduation. After a 15-year hiatus, she returned to school thanks to remote learning and has diverse experience, including running a wolf sanctuary with her fiancé. She continues her work in wolf rescue through her YouTube channel, aspiring to combine animal-assisted healing and criminal justice reform as an attorney.
Alonzo Harvey
Political Science
Alonzo Harvey is an undergraduate Political Science major at UC Berkeley, aspiring to become a crime defense lawyer. A father of three, he balances parenting with his role as a data analyst on the Racial Justice Act team at the Criminal Law and Justice Center, led by Chesa Boudin. Formerly incarcerated, Alonzo's personal growth and commitment to justice drive his efforts in analyzing DA policies to support racial equity in the criminal justice system.
Juliette Draper
Law Student
Juliette is a law student at Berkeley Law. She has a background in policy research in the reproductive health and justice space. After law school, Juliette hopes to be a litigator in her hometown of Houston, Texas and wants to do advocacy work in the economic justice space.
Chau Le
Law Student
Chau is a law student at Berkeley Law. Her legal interests include housing justice and human rights within the criminal legal context. After law school, she hopes to pursue a career in public defense or civil rights litigation on behalf of plaintiffs harmed by the carceral system.
Tech Team
Nathan Hoffman
Law Student
Nathan is a 3rd year law student at SCU.
Yabo Du
Engineer
Yabo has more than 10 years of experience working in software development & project management. He is focusing on high performance distribution systems, large-scale data processing and Web3 technologies. Yabo also loves SUP, pickle ball and swimming.
Partners
The Paper Prisons Initiative is made possible through the support of our collaborators and partners
Contact Us
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